In the trailer for "You Can See Everything," Nathan Fielder positions himself inches from Elizabeth Holmes’s face and asks whether she is telling the truth. Her eyebrows are raised, her eyes wide, and her smile eerily fixed. The expression is disturbing in isolation. But in the film, Fielder returns to the question of her honesty again and again, often at the same invasive distance. Holmes continues smiling and nodding, maintaining that she has never lied while offering remarkably little resistance to his relentless questioning. What initially looked like an unnatural expression begins to resemble an attempt to appease the man confronting her.
As a psychologist and author of the forthcoming book Being Seen, I was particularly interested in a documentary that promised such intimate access to one of the most scrutinized women in America. What interested me was how the people surrounding Holmes might influence what we actually get to see of her.
Why Is Holmes So Agreeable?
This is not a diagnosis, but Holmes’s persistent smile brings to mind fawning, a response in which someone attempts to appease a person they experience as threatening or overpowering. Rather than objecting or withdrawing, they become extremely agreeable, anticipate what the other person wants, and try to avoid further confrontation. Someone may continue smiling even when the encounter has become deeply uncomfortable.
Holmes’s apparent submissiveness in the film may have a longer history. Although she founded and controlled Theranos, a company once valued in the billions, she testified during her trial that her former romantic and business partner, Sunny Balwani, tried to control her appearance and daily life and subjected her to emotional and sexual abuse. Balwani denied the allegations. Watching Holmes accommodate Fielder’s increasingly intrusive questioning raises the possibility that appeasing a domineering person is a familiar way of relating for her.
Billy Evans, Holmes’s current partner, has taken charge of much of her public image while she is incarcerated. Holmes has given him power of attorney, and he writes social-media posts in her name and has even created an artificial intelligence (AI) likeness of her. He says he often doesn’t consult her because he already knows what she wants. His confidence extends to how he interprets her behavior. When Fielder challenges Holmes’s explanations, Evans suggests that she simply thinks differently. What others see as contradictions, he regards as evidence of her unusual mind. His belief in her exceptionalism also gives him a special place in her life: He is the one who understands what others cannot.
Fielder claims a different kind of authority over Holmes. He has built his career around creating social encounters that become almost unbearable to watch, yet Holmes and Evans chose him to make their documentary. Evans was familiar with his work, while Holmes apparently knew little about it. When Fielder asks why they selected him, he receives no clear answer. Once inside their home, he controls the questions, the physical proximity, and ultimately what audiences see. His investigation becomes an increasingly elaborate production, often at Holmes’s expense. She continues to engage with him, smiling through questions that might make other people angry or defensive.
Amanda Seyfried assumes another kind of authority. Having portrayed Holmes in The Dropout, she joins the documentary after Holmes enters prison, reenacting conversations reconstructed from Fielder’s recollections. Soon she is challenging Evans and questioning his influence on Holmes. Seyfried resembles an understudy finally called to play the leading role, except that the woman she replaces has not given up her part. Having inhabited her character, she behaves as though she has acquired special insight into the real woman, even her choice of partner.
How Appeasement Can Invite Increasing Intrusions on Identity
Holmes's extraordinary pliability seems to invite increasingly intrusive behavior. Fielder positions himself inches from her face and repeatedly questions her honesty while she smiles and continues to engage with him. Evans, whose authority she has formally granted, becomes so confident in his understanding of her that he sees little reason to ask what she wants before speaking in her name. While Holmes is in prison, Seyfried steps into her place, reenacting private conversations reconstructed from Fielder’s memory. She goes beyond playing Holmes, however, by insisting that the real woman should leave Evans. What begins with someone taking liberties during a conversation progresses to others assuming the authority to speak for Holmes and eventually to become her. Each seems convinced that their particular understanding of Holmes entitles them to take it further.
Being the person who truly understands someone can be deeply gratifying. It can make us feel perceptive, indispensable, or uniquely trusted. Over time, we may become attached to that position and increasingly reluctant to question our understanding. We explain away behavior that doesn't fit our picture, assume we know what another person wants, or interpret their agreement as confirmation that we were right all along. Even their silence can reinforce our certainty. The more invested we become in our understanding of someone, the less room we may leave for them to surprise us, disagree with us, or reveal parts of themselves we never anticipated.
I left the theater feeling far more empathy for Holmes than I expected. Her accommodating manner, which initially seemed almost artificial, began to resemble an attempt to appease people who were taking increasing liberties with her. What troubled me was how confidently those around her assumed the authority to question, protect, interpret, and eventually impersonate her. Holmes had invited some of this attention and granted some of this authority, yet the boundaries kept shifting. The irony of "You Can See Everything" is that we witness this gradual appropriation of Holmes's identity in plain sight, even as our attention remains fixed on the question of who she really is.