As we draw closer to the packed season of movie releases that I am stoked on, I felt it was time to get back in the groove and go to the movies . This time, instead of a huge blockbuster like the Odyssey, I and a few friends were drawn in to watch a documentary, “I Can See Everything”.

Let this be a warning to any who haven’t watched or plan to see this – THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD

This near three hour film features Nathan Fielder, a very unique director and writer who also dabbles in being a comedian, who this time has embarked on a project to dive deep into the Elizebeth Holmes Theranos scandal, through a lengthy set of interviews and near detective work.

Going into this movie, I knew nothing about Nathan’s work, and only knew the Theranos story at a high level. The film picks up after the trial of Elizabeth “Liz” Holmes, where she was tried for several counts of fraud, misrepresenting the capabilities of an innovative blood-test device that claimed to be able to reduce the usually high cost and lengthy duration of testing to scan for thousands of biomarkers. The device was supposed to be made available to the masses, but severely underperformed, and was unable to perform what the company promised and made huge financial gains on.

I assumed that the documentary would explore the trial and try to gain more information on how the fraud was committed, but instead it focuses more on the character of Liz and her husband Billy (who we find out is a very bizarre person). The interviews Nathan conducts are uncomfortably awkward, and exposes the pathological lying traits of these characters. over the course of three hours, the documentary shifts into what I can describe as somewhat of a detective movie. The first hour of interview footage uncovers holes in the pair’s story that prompts Nathan, and Amanda Seyfried, who played Elizabeth Holmes in the popular Hulu series “The Dropout” to investigate further. The two cleverly get around filming constraints and the inability to publish key conversations they had with Liz and Billy by re-enacting conversations themselves so they can publish it to the public (the audience of the movie). I found this structure to be creative and something that no other movie I had watched had done.

What I liked: the style and filming of this doc were superb. The atmosphere is eerie and really makes you feel confused by the constant pathological lying to the camera and interviewer, and builds a sense of tension as the it grows to the climax. I was initially worried that it would simply be a three hour set of interviews and history overview of what had happened in the past, but this was not the case. These elements helped elevate the documentary setup into something with a little more cinematic complexity.

This leads me to what I didn’t think was as good: The source material itself. At its core, Liz and Billy are weird people, that I don’t think I would elect to listen to for more than 10 minutes given the choice. The first half of the movie is interview heavy, and they don’t seem to gain any huge evidence or information that “seals the case” or accomplishes what they set out to do. By the time Nathan takes matters into his own hands to confront characters about certain things he felt they lied about, it seemed like they were scratching at straws and just had to make a movie about something.

The bottom line here is that this movie was made excellently, but didn’t have a strong enough plot to really draw me in the whole time. I’d give it a strong 6.8/10.

With my film itch not fully scratched, I still await the release of Dune 3, which comes out in December.

Very curious what other people thought about this movie, because I know it is decently popular and kind of the only thing to watch right now.