According to Deadline, You Can See Everything, the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, opened in 800 theaters today after $1.75 million in Thursday previews with a 100 percent positive score and 92 percent of previewers recommending it. A24 says hundreds of preview showtimes sold out.
The numbers are the least of it. The film follows the woman who pleaded guilty to four counts of investor fraud and is serving 11 years in prison in Texas, and it is being sold like an awards-season event: 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, a 98 percent audience score, a Letterboxd rating Deadline calls top-50-of-all-time territory, and a projection north of $10 million. That would break the $7.1 million documentary opening record, set by a movie about Melania. The record is the one number in this story that is not an insult to the genre.
The method is the genre. Filming began in 2023, in secret, inside her San Diego home. She wore a microphone for 12 hours a day while a wide-angle camera followed her days and her boyfriend's shower. She gave her first interview in a decade. Her father admitted on camera that he worked at Enron. At Telluride, the audience's cell phones were locked in bags for a surprise screening of a film about a convicted fraudster, which is the closest the festival circuit has come to a hostage situation.
The budget finishes the job. A24 spent under $10 million making the film and under $10 million marketing it, and the original pitch, per the review, was that if it did not work out, they would just throw it in the trash. It worked out. The hangout film about the most famous con in tech history now runs an Oscar campaign. Fielder, who built a career standing next to the weird thing, does not know why she wanted him there. The film is two hours and 55 minutes long, which is plenty of time to find out what you are there for. The answer is in the title.
YOUR TURN: A documentary about a convicted fraudster just posted a 100 percent critics score. When the con is the art, who is the mark: the investors, or the film festival?
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