If the story of Elizabeth Holmes and the company Theranos, which started when Holmes was only 19 years old in 2003, were introduced to the world as a work of fiction, no literary agency or production company would have bought it. The reason is that this entire 15-year story of one young woman with a revolutionary medical breakthrough that never worked, who then became the youngest female self-made billionaire, is so insane that it's too bizarre to make a movie or publish a novel.
Holmes and some scientists she hired into her company believed they could create a machine that could perform any number of complex blood tests using only one drop of blood, no longer needing to wait days for the results. If this was possible, then the two largest blood testing companies in the world, LabCorp (14 billion annual revenue) and Quest Diagnostics (11.4 billion annual revenue), would cease to exist, and medical science would advance by decades. Unfortunately, Holmes and her top employees lied to all of their investors, many of them very wealthy and famous people, tricking them into investing in a machine that never worked as they said it would. The most insane part of this crazy story is why these intelligent, wealthy people did not insist on seeing this machine work throughout the entire process of testing the drop of blood, verifying the results using the latest medical science, and then validating the results with the aid of the federal government.
At its peak, in 2015, Theranos was worth 9 billion dollars, and Elizabeth Holmes was worth 4.5 billion dollars, all based on lies that were maintained for years and cheated investors out of billions of dollars. One year later, the value of Theranos was worthless. Six years later, Holmes was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The new documentary, "You Can See Everything", is a film of an interview with director Nathan Fielder during the 34 days that Elizabeth Holmes spent in a small rented San Diego house with her boyfriend, Billy Evans, and her two children, prior to her going to prison for 11 years for her crimes as CEO of Theranos. Unbelievably, Holmes still believes that she did nothing wrong when she was questioned by Fielder about her many crimes. Holmes eyes are large and penetrating, and she seemed close to crying as she pleaded with Nathan Fielder to believe she was innocent. There was an insight into how Holmes mind works when she was shown the Abbott and Costello routine "Who's on First", and she had no understanding of why this famous routine was funny.
Holmes's fiancé, Billy Evans, also seemed about as insane as Elizabeth while talking with Fielder, with both Fielder and Holmes both still believing in Theranos and actually planning a second release of the company.
When Holmes was in prison, the actress who played her in the Hulu series "The Dropout", Amanda Seyfried, reprised her Emmy-winning 2022 role, playing Holmes in scenes of Fielder interviewing her in prison. In other scenes, Seyfried was interviewed as herself by Fielder, discussing the accusations about the accuracy of the Hulu series " The Dropout" and the many difficulties Seyfried had playing that part. This entire documentary had a very dark, slow, and unusual pace, and for that reason is very unique as a documentary. I also thought there was no reason why this movie needed to run almost 3 hours.
The reviews for this documentary are 99-100%, with some critics writing that this movie could win the Oscar for Best Picture. Due to some of the slow and boring parts and the too-long running time, I give this movie a 90% rating and a very strong recommendation.
No comments:
Post a Comment