A24 crashed the fall-movie season with last weekend’s surprise screening of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s “You Can See Everything” at Telluride. We now have more details concerning the rollout for this Elizabeth Holmes doc.
“You Can See Everything” has been added the 64th New York Film Festival, within the Spotlight, set to debut on Wednesday, September 30 at Alice Tully Hall. Furthermore, A24 has also set an October 16 theatrical release for the film.
Here’s the NYFF synopsis:
In a seemingly endless parade of documentaries, dramatizations, and exposés, Elizabeth Holmes, the inventor of a purported ‘miracle’ medical device at her company Theranos, and sentenced to prison for fraud, has been the face of Silicon Valley hucksterism. Yet in this astounding new film from Nathan Fielder (The Rehearsal and The Curse, NYFF61) and Lance Oppenheim (Primetime), created in secret over the past four years, Holmes becomes an entirely different kind of camera subject. Inviting Fielder into their home to live with them and start recording their lives just 34 days before her incarceration, Holmes and her romantic partner, William ‘Billy’ Evans, profess her innocence on their own, intimate terms. Is this all an elaborate ruse? Or is something even stranger afoot? Fielder and Oppenheim have created a fascinating portrait of a relationship, decimating notions of objectivity in documentary while also interrogating the limits of fiction. This blistering, head-spinning—and frequently hilarious—high-wire act of self-reflexivity keeps changing shape and uncovering surprises as it swerves headlong into the unknowable. An A24 release.
A24 kept its Elizabeth Holmes documentary under extraordinary secrecy for three years — even the company's own eight-person documentary staff was shut out. Only a small group of lawyers plus TV chief Ravi Nandan and colleague Sam French were looped in, according to Page Six Hollywood who put the budget just under $8M.
Fielder, co-directing with Oppenheim, moved in with Holmes and her family before she reported to prison, and A24 reportedly greenlit the effort with no guarantee it would ever be released. The company didn't announce the project until the night it premiered at Telluride. The three-hour film became an instant sensation: strong festival buzz, enthusiastic critics, and immediate Oscar talk, with speculation that A24 will campaign it for Best Picture.
The film seems to fit Fielder's track record of work that resists easy classification, from "Nathan For You" to "The Rehearsal" and "The Curse" — Variety's Owen Gleiberman described his territory as sitting somewhere between fiction and reality. That said, A24 tells me that I should refer to the film as a “documentary,” rather than “hybrid.”
The film currently sits at 92 on Metacritic. Reactions have indeed been glowing, and A24 seems very intent on campaigning hard for this movie during awards season — its potential Oscar slate also includes "The Debut," "The Invite," "Club Kid," "Primetime," and "Misty Green."
“Naza,” a politically charged doc, has taken over the Lido. The film, a late addition to the Venice lineup, is drawing raves and looks like a clear Golden Lion contender.