Titled You Can See Everything, the film, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, captures Holmes at home with her partner, Billy Evans, and their two children in the weeks leading up to her incarceration.
The documentary presents a rare glimpse into the life of a woman who largely withdrew from public view after one of Silicon Valley’s most notorious corporate scandals. Its unusual blend of documentary filmmaking and reality television has already attracted considerable attention, following its debut at the Telluride Film Festival in September.
At a screening in Los Angeles this week, the film reportedly prompted laughter, gasps and applause, while the filmmakers described the experience of documenting Holmes and her family as emotionally challenging and, at times, deeply unsettling.
Fielder, the Canadian comedian, writer and producer known for Nathan For You and The Rehearsal, said he was still trying to make sense of the experience.
“I still am not sure to this day, like, what I experienced, and it’s one of the reasons I’m excited for it to like come out and more people see it, because it was just a small group for so long,” Fielder said.
“Maybe it being out there, like everyone could help me understand what I went through a little bit.”
From Silicon Valley sensation to convicted fraudster
Holmes became one of the most closely watched figures in the technology industry during the early 2010s, when she founded Theranos, a health technology company that promised to revolutionise medical testing.
The company claimed its technology could perform a wide range of diagnostic tests using only a few drops of blood, a proposition that attracted enormous investor interest and generated expectations that the technology could transform healthcare.
Among those drawn to the venture were prominent figures, including former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
Holmes cultivated an image as an ambitious young entrepreneur seeking to disrupt an established industry. Theranos became a symbol of Silicon Valley’s appetite for bold ideas, attracting significant attention from investors and the media.
However, the company’s claims eventually unravelled as scrutiny intensified over the reliability of its blood-testing technology and the accuracy of its representations to investors and the public.
The collapse of Theranos culminated in criminal proceedings against Holmes, whose trial became one of the most widely followed corporate fraud cases in recent years.
In 2022, she was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy in connection with the company. The scandal destroyed Theranos and transformed Holmes from a celebrated technology founder into a cautionary figure in discussions about corporate accountability, investor confidence and the dangers of unsubstantiated technological claims.
The case subsequently inspired extensive media coverage, podcasts, books and the television miniseries The Dropout, which starred Amanda Seyfried as Holmes.
Despite the public fascination with her downfall, Holmes largely stayed away from the spotlight, making the emergence of a documentary filmed shortly before her imprisonment particularly striking.
How the filmmakers gained access to Holmes
According to Fielder and Oppenheim, the project began after Holmes initiated discussions with independent entertainment company A24 about documenting her everyday life.
Following several meetings with the filmmakers, she invited them into her California home, opening the door to an unusual production that would place the directors in close proximity to their subjects.
The arrangement proved more complicated than a conventional documentary shoot.
Fielder, whose comedy often draws on awkward social encounters, deadpan humour and situations that blur the boundaries between reality and performance, became a constant presence in the film.
The decision to feature him so prominently was made during production, the filmmakers explained, as their interactions with Holmes became an increasingly central part of the documentary.
Fielder himself acknowledged the unusual nature of his involvement, questioning why Holmes would want to spend the final month before a lengthy prison term being filmed by someone whose work frequently explores uncomfortable human behaviour.
“There was never a great explanation” for why he should lead the project, he said, or why Holmes would want to spend “your last month of freedom in a decade with this guy.”
“I like to see myself as like a nice person overall, but still, I wouldn’t choose me,” he added.
The filmmaker’s self-deprecating remarks reflect the unconventional approach behind the project, which appears to rely as much on the interactions between Holmes and the directors as on the events unfolding within her household.
Uncomfortable encounters at the centre of the film
Some of the documentary’s most widely circulated images show Fielder sitting face-to-face with Holmes as she maintains an intense gaze, creating scenes that have already generated significant discussion on social media.
The encounters appear to capture the uneasy atmosphere that developed during filming, with Fielder admitting that the prolonged eye contact made him uncomfortable.
Oppenheim said the filmmaking process increasingly suggested that direct confrontation might be necessary to explore certain aspects of Holmes’ behaviour and beliefs.
He described the possibility of having someone confront “their delusions on certain aspects” as perhaps the only way to make the documentary work.
Fielder, meanwhile, said he initially struggled with the unusual exchanges, feeling that he was the person disrupting the moments or withdrawing from them.
“But I also felt like I was — these moments were so odd, and I was the one, like, ruining them or, like, bailing on them,” he said.
“At a certain point, I was like, ‘I’m not going to stop.’ If she’s looking at me, I’m just going to keep looking at her.”
The exchanges have become a focal point of online discussion, with images from the film circulating widely before its theatrical release. Their unsettling quality has also fuelled curiosity about the nature of the relationship between the filmmakers and the former technology executive.
Tensions behind closed doors
The filmmakers also described the challenges of living under the same roof as their documentary subjects, an arrangement that blurred the boundaries between professional observation and private family life.
According to the directors, the close quarters created tensions during production. Evans, Holmes’ partner, attempted to exert some control over the filmmaking process, although the directors were not asked to leave the home.
Oppenheim also said neither Holmes nor Evans appeared familiar with his work when they first welcomed the filmmakers into their home.
The circumstances created an unusual dynamic: a filmmaker known for deliberately uncomfortable comedy documenting a former corporate executive whose public reputation had been shaped by deception, intense scrutiny and a dramatic legal downfall.
The resulting film appears to occupy an uncertain space between intimate family portrait, documentary investigation and reality television, leaving viewers to consider how much of what they see reflects ordinary domestic life and how much is shaped by the presence of the cameras.
Neither Holmes nor Evans has watched the finished documentary, according to Fielder and Oppenheim. Holmes remains in prison.
A different perspective on a familiar scandal
The release of You Can See Everything comes after years of public fascination with the Theranos scandal, which has been examined through multiple formats and perspectives.
Unlike accounts centred on the company’s technology, investors or criminal proceedings, the new documentary focuses on Holmes’ private environment during the final weeks before her incarceration.
That approach offers a different perspective on a story already familiar to many audiences, shifting attention from the rise and collapse of Theranos to the personal circumstances surrounding Holmes’ transition from life outside prison to incarceration.
The film also raises questions about the responsibilities of documentary filmmakers when given access to the private lives of controversial public figures, particularly when family members and children are part of the environment being documented.
For Fielder and Oppenheim, the experience appears to have left questions that remained unresolved even after filming ended.
At the Los Angeles screening, Fielder described the process as difficult to understand fully, suggesting that the film’s public release might help him make sense of what had happened.
With its unusual access, tense face-to-face encounters and examination of Holmes’ life immediately before prison, You Can See Everything is poised to reopen public discussion about one of the most prominent corporate scandals of the past decade.
The documentary is scheduled to open in US cinemas on October 16.