Can You Can See Everything break the Oscar doc curse?

As we approach October and the trophy machine clicks into high gear, I don’t think there is a film I am more excited for than You Can See Everything, the Elizabeth Holmes documentary made by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.

We saw the first trailer last month, and now there is a new trailer, and…well… it looks like a horror movie, no?

Maybe it’s the music, maybe it’s just that Elizabeth Holmes using her big baby eyes to manipulate people is both freaky and annoying, but that trailer makes my skin crawl. Even Nathan Fielder, who at least projects being a person who can tolerate a high level of bullsh-t, looks put off by Holmes (and maybe even more put off by her partner, Billy Evans). I feel like it’s bad news FOR YOU if Nathan Fielder can’t contain his disgust.  

You Can See Everything premiered at Telluride, and while I was at TIFF, I talked to several people whose taste I trust who saw it in Colorado, not one of them explained the film in the same way. My first layer of interest is my fascination/revulsion with Holmes, one of the most dedicated liars I’ve ever heard of; my second layer of interest is the collaboration between Fielder and Oppenheim, documentarians whose work I have enjoyed in the past; my third layer of interest is watching Nathan Fielder cope with Holmes and Evans; but my fourth and final layer of interest is discovering what this film even is, because everyone I’ve talked to about it is latching onto completely different facets of the film, which suggests You Can See Everything is going to be, at minimum, a total trip.

Another TIFF conversation about this film is its chances for a Best Picture nomination. But there is a major hurdle to that, as a documentary has never been nominated for Best Picture (I had to double check, not even Harlan County, USA, or Hoop Dreams? But no, not even them. Hoop Dreams was actually at the center of controversy that led to major changes in the documentary nomination process for the Oscars. The more you know etc etc). You could call it an Oscars doc curse.

If it’s ever going to happen for a documentary to pull a Best Picture documentary, it could be this doc and this year, with anti-billionaire sentiment growing in the zeitgeist. A lot of Oscar campaigning is just managing momentum, and this year, the early momentum is on You Can See Everything’s side.