UPDATE: It’s now a $15M+ weekend after a surprising Saturday exceeded expectations, and Sunday looks just as good. The one stat I find staggering is 2000+ sellouts across the country. The film only cost $7M to produce.
EARLIER: Six weeks ago, we didn't even know this movie existed. Now Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's "You Can See Everything" has grossed roughly $5.7M across Thursday and Friday, and a $13M opening weekend is very much in play. That's from only 855 screens, for a 174-minute documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, which is about to outgross the far pricier "Whalefall" in its debut.
The PostTrak audience score is now 92% definite recommend and 98% positive. Metacritic has it at 99, and it debuted on Letterboxd at 4.8, instantly becoming the site's highest-rated feature of all time (yeah, I know).
This indescribable doc lives somewhere between Kiarostami's "Close-Up" and Fielder's own "The Rehearsal." It's a dense film, with almost too much to unpack, but audiences aren't just putting up with the strangeness; they're showing up for it. And A24 expands it wide on October 23, so the ceiling just got a lot higher.
What many wanted to know is what Fielder could possibly have been doing with Holmes for three years, and the answer is stranger than any of us guessed. It's half documentary and half something else entirely (A24 would like me to say "documentary," not "hybrid," and I'll respect that). It plays like two people trying to outwit each other psychologically who slowly start to gain mutual respect.
The film plays like a sprawling essay on separating fact from fiction, truth from lies, and the murky middle ground we settle on. By the end, I genuinely wasn't sure what I'd just watched, and I mean that as the highest compliment. It's a dense, thick movie, the kind I'd happily sit through a second time just to catch the countless nuances.
Now, am I calling this film a "masterpiece" like every other critic? Nope. It isn't one. That word gets tossed around too easily these days. This doc is messy. In the chaos of trying to dissect Holmes, Fielder and Oppenheim never quite find coherence, and you can tell the film was very difficult to piece together in the editing room. Hell, with so many questions left unanswered, I'm not convinced Fielder and Oppenheim ever cracked the right way to end it.
That said, going by Howard Hawks' famous rule that a good movie is "three good scenes and no bad ones," "You Can See Everything" blows past the quota. The great scenes pile up, so I'll restrain myself and name just the five biggest moments. Heavy spoilers ahead, obviously.
1. The unblinking "Why would I deceive you?" stare. This is the movie, folks. The teaser went viral for a reason: Fielder's camera just sits on Holmes' face as she insists she has no reason to deceive him. In the full scene, he asks if she's ever lied in her life. She says no. He pushes on white lies. It's riveting and deeply uncomfortable.
2. "Who's on First?" Fielder sits Holmes and Billy Evans down to watch the Abbott and Costello routine to illustrate why talking to them feels so maddening. Then he can't explain why it's funny; Holmes just stares, smiles, and doesn't quite get it. Comedy gold, or a hostage video? Both. What we realize in that moment is that Holmes' brain is wired in a very different way.
3. The egg-whisking incident. Holmes whisks eggs. An irritated Evans grabs the bowl and does it "correctly." When Fielder asks about it, Holmes says Evans thinks he's faster and better. It's a tiny moment that tells you everything about the relationship, and it inadvertently sets up the last hour.
4. Watching "The Dropout" in bed. Holmes had avoided the Hulu series, starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes, afraid it would be too much. Fielder talks her into watching it on a laptop in the couple's bed. When a tense scene hits, she turns away and cries.
5. The Billy–Seyfried confrontation. Seyfried and Fielder ask Evans whether Holmes knew he'd asked to get paid for the film, and things get heated. He then reveals he's been posting from Holmes' verified X account, trolling people while posing as her. Yes, this is where that much-discussed Charlie Kirk mention comes from.
The Best Picture talk I raised back in September no longer seems far-fetched. It may be the frontrunner to become the first documentary ever nominated.
So, those of you who went this weekend: what did you make of it? Where do you land on Holmes, and, most fascinatingly, on Billy Evans, her sniffling, controlling, weirdo husband? Was Fielder manipulating her, or was it the other way around?
Very sorry to hear about Tom Skerritt's passing today. He was 93. If you grew up watching movies from the '70s and '80s, Skerritt was simply there, the guy with the mustache and those calm eyes.