We’ve often perceived documentaries as having an obligation not to tell us necessarily what to think, but to give us multiple viewpoints and push us to come up with our own assumptions. However, when Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, invites a film crew and directors, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, into her home for the last 34 days before her 11-year prison sentence, it’s hard not to begin feeding off the energy that Fielder puts out in his intense interviews with Holmes.
Holmes reached out to A24 for them to record a documentary of her telling “her truth” about her fraudulent blood testing company, Theranos, before she’s incarcerated.
In the film, both Holmes and her husband, Billy Evans provide a masterclass in deceit and manipulation, and after a runtime of two hours and 52 minutes, you leave distrusting every narrative depicted in the movie.
It is questionable whether it would be possible for Fielder to remain unbiased and remove emotions from his interviews on the project, as he was living in Holmes and Evans’ house, eating their food, and thus easily susceptible to their manipulations through the intimate conversations he shares with them.
Still, it was easy to see through the facade Holmes Evans put up in their interviews: Evans would often excuse himself whenever questions got too pointed, or Holmes would start crying to end the interview. It’s incredibly hard to pinpoint honesty in Holmes’ outwardly vulnerable moments, as they all included these fabricated ways of telling Fielder how she wants people to view her: a mother of her two children, a wife, and a victim—not at all what words come to mind when comprehending her backstory of defrauding investors of Theranos with her faulty product.
The deadpan expressions Fielder portrays during interviews break in moments of absolute disbelief of what Evans or Holmes are saying to him. He never raises his voice or places overwhelming blame on them for their actions; Fielder rather poses holistic ‘this is what the public thinks of you’ kind of questions.
In the first 34 days of footage, audiences can see all sides of Evans. Particularly, in a scene where Holmes whisks eggs lightly and without precision, Evans snatches the bowl from her, saying that “she doesn’t do it right.” Even from this quick scene, we see his controlling nature, and presumably Holmes’ lack thereof.
In the second half of the documentary, Fielder states, “I’m trying to keep my emotions out of this,” the key word being trying. However, with Fielder’s involvement in the film as the director, as well as reporting the conversations he has with Holmes during her incarceration, it’s hard to say if his memory or his own opinions of Holmes bleed into his retelling.
The narrative reliability of Fielder comes into question specifically within Holmes’ planned attempts at flirting with him. Texting him, “You can totally see everything FYI,” her piercing eye contact with Fielder after she mentions that’s her way of flirting, and extremely long hugs barely scratch the surface. Amanda Seyfried, who played Holmes in the movie “The Dropout,” calls Fielder out on his possible bias near the end of the film.
Holmes shows her true intentions to win Fielder over when she tries to persuade him to get into the ocean with her, and it could be presumed that this was a moment of her wanting an intimate moment alone with Fielder without microphones listening to them, and we do see Fielder holding Holmes’ hand to guide her.
Fielder lurks in every aspect of the film; whether that be around corners listening in on what they’re saying with his dinky headphones, sitting on their bed and watching “The Dropout” with Holmes and Evans and literally including a clip of Evans showering completely nude.
Although Evans has blatantly shown his manipulative and overly controlling nature throughout the film, it’s interesting to see that he didn’t care about how close Fielder got to Holmes. It’s like this coordination of getting closer to Fielder was planned.
The second half of the film completely removes Holmes as a key focal point, as she’s in prison, and entirely centers Evans in his spiral to keep Theranos afloat as a company. The way it’s orchestrated invites audiences to hate Evans even more than they did before, and have sympathy for Holmes, once we see how intense and manipulative Evans is.
With Holmes behind bars, the viewer realizes they never saw everything from her in the first place, even when she was directly in front of Fielder’s face.
Throughout his time living with Holmes, Fielder was capable of seeing everything, but he never truly did.
The muting of the mics in moments where both Evans and Holmes don’t actually want Fielder to see and hear showcases the facade they put up to try and sterilize Holmes’ mess regarding Theranos.
You can’t trust anyone in the film. Holmes, for obvious reasons, even when she performs honesty and vulnerability. Evans, as he commands every aspect of Holmes’ life like a puppeteer. And although you might want to, you certainly can’t trust Fielder, given the lack of evidence behind the retelling with Seyfried and the hidden bias he holds towards Holmes.
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