"Cognitive dissonance" was an issue while filming You Can See Everything

Nathan Fielder sat across from Elizabeth Holmes in a cramped hotel lobby, the hum of the air‑conditioner a low backdrop to their tense conversation. Holmes, with her trademark calm, slid a stack of papers across the table, each one a promise of a future that had already unraveled. Fielder’s eyes flicked between the documents and the woman, his mind racing through the headlines that had painted her a cautionary tale. The moment felt like a pivot point in a story that had already been written in the public eye, yet it was a scene the two had to capture for a film that would become You Can See Everything.

The film’s genesis began with a simple act of curiosity. Lance Oppenheim, a documentarian who had spotted Fielder watching Some Kind Of Heaven on the Indee screener app, reached out. Their friendship grew in the quiet corridors of film‑nerd camaraderie. Oppenheim recalled a Magic Castle performance that reminded him Holmes had once expressed interest in collaborating with A24. That spark eventually led Fielder to push for a meeting with her, even though he initially felt her story was over‑told.

A24’s agreement that Oppenheim and Fielder could “pull the plug” before committing to the project provided a safety net. It allowed the duo to explore Holmes’s narrative without the pressure of a binding contract. This flexibility proved crucial when the reality of filming began to diverge from the script. As the cameras rolled, moments unfolded that neither director could predict, and each interpreted them differently.

During the shoot, Fielder and Oppenheim would often find themselves at odds over what a scene meant. “If we can’t agree on what’s happening, there’s something here,” Oppenheim would say, a sentiment that resonated with the film’s core theme of chaos. This disagreement, rather than being a flaw, became a lens through which the documentary examined the complexities of truth and perception. Holmes herself oscillated between seeming genuine and the awareness that she was a liar, a duality that the filmmakers could not ignore.

When the film premiered at the New York Film Festival, the Q&A session with Fielder, Oppenheim, and NYFF head Dennis Lim echoed the very tension that had driven the documentary’s creation. Monica Castillo of The A.V. Club noted how the trio discussed whether they had agreed on what they had shot. Their conversation revealed that the film was less about presenting a single narrative and more about exposing the fragmented, subjective nature of storytelling itself.

As a writer, I see You Can See Everything as a mirror held up to the modern media landscape, where certainty is rare and interpretation reigns. The film’s willingness to embrace cognitive dissonanceshowing that even its creators could not fully agree on the truthoffers a fresh perspective on the Theranos saga. It suggests that the story of Elizabeth Holmes is not a closed chapter but a living, breathing debate that will continue to unfold as new voices enter the conversation.

The documentary’s release marks the beginning of a new dialogue about truth in the age of information overload. By foregrounding the very uncertainty that defined Holmes’s rise and fall, Fielder and Oppenheim invite viewers to question not just the story they present, but the stories they accept.