The documentary "_You Can See Everything_", produced by A24 and directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, is currently one of the most talked-about films in theaters. After watching this 174-minute film, audiences are still debating about its famous yet elusive protagonist: how "real" is Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos, and to what extent she should bear responsibility for the fraudulent activities that led to her imprisonment.
The truth about Holmes and whether she intended to deceive are not so black and white – at least that's what Nick Brody, a professor of communication at the University of Puget Sound, believes after watching a video that went viral as TikTok. Professor Brody offers a course on lying and deception, where students are required to study how people lie, the ethics of lying, and how language shapes our understanding of truth.
Why is a single word – “can” – so important?
Language plays an extremely important role in “You Can See Everything”. In a key scene in the first half of the film, Fielder and Holmes discuss the meaning of the word “can”, as well as what Holmes meant by that famous statement back in those years – that the blood testing technology of “Theranos” could perform any type of testing. Holmes believes that it means the device has such capabilities; Fielder argues that most people, upon hearing “can”, would understand it to mean “it can be done now.” (The informant Tyler Shultz once told Fortune that the device displayed in front of the camera was not the one actually used for patients.)
Subsequently, it seems that Holmes also failed to understand the linguistic humor in the classic comedy Who’s on First? by Abbott and Costello. There is also an unsolved mystery in the documentary: whether The New York Times accurately quoted Holmes in a 2023 profile article. Holmes and her partner Billy Evans insist that they were misquoted; however, The New York Times maintains that their report is correct.
At the beginning of the video, Brody says: "One of the most fundamental views in communication studies is that language is arbitrary. Meaning is arbitrary as well. Meaning exists in people's minds, not in the words themselves. Words do not come with meaning inherent to them. We simply conventionally assign meaning to them. We often agree on their meanings simultaneously in the present moment. This gives us a great deal of room for deception. This is also the main reason for misunderstandings and conflicts to occur."
Following this logic, Holmes may have exploited the arbitrariness of words and people's default assumptions about their meanings to carry out deception. She might have borrowed from the concept mentioned by communication scholar Timothy Levine, namely the "default theory of truth" – which posits that people generally assume others to be honest – in order to attract investors to support Theranos and its yet-unmature technology. However, the core issue of this documentary is not so much whether Holmes deceived others, but rather whether she did so intentionally: whether she deliberately used carefully crafted language to mislead or whether she inadvertently uttered truths that could lead to confusion.
“You can tell a lie with the intention of deceiving others. That is what lying is.” Brody said, “But you can also tell a truth, omitting key information, or tell a truth that creates a false impression. There’s a term for that as well, called ‘paltering’. Paltering refers to using truthful statements with the intention of creating a false impression.”
From the first generation iPhone to the "flying" Tesla: An example of paltering
Researchers at Harvard and Wharton School of Business have identified paltering as a distinct form of deception that is common in marketing. Food packaging highlights features that make the products appear healthier, while hiding the complete nutritional information. Technology companies may be the most notorious practitioners of palterer. Brody mentions Steve Jobs – the idol of Holmes – who used a prototype that was barely functional when he unveiled the first generation of iPhone on stage in 2007.
A more recent example is when Tesla released a Roadster, which briefly flew using thrusters manufactured by SpaceX. That's right, the car actually flew. However, Tesla stated that mass production would not begin until 2028, and it is also clearly stated on their official website that the flying version has not been approved for use on public roads. It's certainly exciting, but it's not the whole story.
Holmes may also be engaged in paltering: When she talked about the technology “can” used for any kind of testing, she omitted a key fact – this technology is not reliable enough to claim that it has actually achieved what is claimed. In the end, in 2022, the jury found her guilty of four charges of defrauding investors and conspiracy, but acquitted her of the charges related to patients; last year, an appeals court upheld this conviction.
Nevertheless, Holmes consistently claimed in the documentary that she had done nothing wrong. The film documents her last few weeks before reporting to prison in 2023. Brody stated in a subsequent video: "A major issue touched upon by this documentary, but which cannot be directly answered, is whether Holmes truly believes she is lying herself."
Even Nathan Fielder can't explain it clearly.
Even Fielder doesn't know the answer. "The first time I met her, I had a very strange feeling: at certain moments, she seemed very sincere," Fielder said during the Q&A session after the film's screening at the New York Film Festival. "But then I would think, 'No, that's not right,' and I would start to examine and question my own thoughts, telling myself, 'Okay, I know she's a liar.'" He added, "It wasn't until we started shooting that certain things actually happened, and some of those moments are also depicted in the movie. Then Lance and I would discuss what we thought had happened, but we often completely disagreed on the meaning of those events."
For a documentary about truth and deception, Fielder is an unusual director. Through “Nathan for You” and “The Rehearsal”, he has established a personal brand centered around deception and performance. Brody calls Holmes “a high-frequency liar”, which is a term used by deception researchers to describe those who lie the most frequently. In a British study, high-frequency liars refer to those who claim to tell five or more lies per day. As for whether Fielder himself counts among them, that is another perplexing question.
In a subsequent interview with Fortune, Brody said, "I think this issue extends to anyone involved in the performing arts or creative industries. She is a professional in the entertainment industry; she is a performer. Even here, she is also a documentary director. And they chose her, but they must have known that she is the kind of documentary director who would take very unexpected approaches."
These issues become more prominent in the latter half of the film, which has a nearly meta-narrative style. After going to prison, Amanda Seyfried, who won an Emmy Award for her role in the Hulu episode " The Dropout ", reprised that character once again while recreating those moments that could not be captured by the camera. With these reenactments, Fielder and Seyfried further explored Holmes's intentions and actions, but by this time, the audience had become highly sensitive to the artificial traces on the screen.
A documentary belonging to the "post-truth" era
The popularity of this film in the public opinion sphere also reflects the anxiety of contemporary society towards truth and reality. On its opening weekend, the film grossed approximately 15 million dollars at just 855 theaters, making it the best-performing non-music documentary since 2004's “Fahrenheit 9/11.” “Post-truth” has now become an abbreviation that refers to the declining trust people have in institutions once regarded as authorities on truth: the news industry, science, market data, the judicial system, and even documentaries themselves.
Brody said, "We see attacks on the journalism industry, attacks on science, and also attacks on the courts. We live in a reality where those things that we once took for granted to help us distinguish truth from falsehood are no longer universally recognized."
In the end, he said, "I believe that this documentary comes at a critical moment – we are strongly feeling all of this. Elections are approaching, and AI is everywhere; not only are there claims from tech companies about what AI can do, but people can't even be sure whether the text they read or the images they see are generated by humans or by these models. I think these issues have become the top concern for many people, even if they aren't aware of it, and they are touching on these anxieties."
The story of Holmes is not over yet. She plans to move into a transitional resettlement facility in Texas in August 2027; while Evans is now running her own blood testing startup company. According to Fortune, this company has patents and investors, but it still does not have a product available yet. For more information about this film, you can read the film review by Fortune, as well as the views on the film by John Carreyrou, the author of Bad Blood.
As these issues gradually unfold, the promises contained in the film's title become increasingly weighty. Whether they are fulfilled depends on each viewer's understanding of trust and truth, as well as how they interpret the phrase "_can".
