Stop Making Elizabeth Holmes a Movie Star

Nathan Fielder says she called him from prison to repeat “I trust you” before “You Can See Everything” opened to $15 million.

Elizabeth Holmes is serving 11 years in federal prison for defrauding investors, and last weekend a documentary about her last 34 days of freedom took in $15 million. That's the second-biggest opening weekend a documentary has ever had, TechCrunch reported. I'd like all of us, starting with the people closest to the film, to stop making her a star.

That's not a verdict on “You Can See Everything,” which I haven't seen and won't pretend to judge. The film held a 99% score on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic as of Sunday, TechCrunch reported. My verdict rests on the public record around the film, and that record starts with a phone call.

Nathan Fielder, who directed the film with Lance Oppenheim, told Wired that Holmes rang him from prison just before it reached theaters, after more than six months of silence, Variety reported. By Fielder's account, she asked how he was, said she hadn't read much about the film, talked about her kids and twice told him “I trust you.” He said he didn't know what she meant.

I think I do. Trust was always Holmes' real product. Investors bought it, and she was convicted of defrauding them about her blood-testing technology. Her appeals were rejected, and in September TechCrunch reported that her petition asking President Trump to commute her sentence was still listed as pending. She's still selling trust. She's just doing it from a prison phone now.

The fair objection is that a film about a con isn't an endorsement of the con, and nobody who's watched “Nathan for You” or “The Rehearsal” would mistake Fielder for a publicist. He told Wired he still can't make sense of why she let him in. But the idea of a Holmes documentary was hers before it was his. Fielder said he only called A24 after hearing that Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, had already tried to sell the studio a film about themselves and gotten nowhere, Variety reported.

Evans has been plain about the goal. On the “All-In” podcast the day before the opening, he said the people who love him thought he was crazy for falling for Holmes until they spent time with her. The film, he said, was meant “to help scale that up.” Scale is a founder's word, and that's a founder's plan: take the private charm offensive national.

Variety argues the plan is backfiring, pointing to a teaser that left many viewers disturbed by Holmes' demeanor and her claims that she did nothing wrong at Theranos. I'd love to believe that. But the film opened in just 855 theaters, against 3,575 for “Street Fighter,” the weekend's top movie. It still had a reported 2,000 sold-out screenings, TechCrunch noted. Disgust that buys a ticket is still a ticket.

Clemency is a favor, and favors run on goodwill. Right now Holmes has a hit, a partner making her case on a podcast and a famous director she called from prison to say she trusts him. Nobody has to plan anything for that to help her.

So watch it, if you want. Argue about it. Just stop passing around her prison call like a charming bit of press. When Holmes told Fielder she trusted him, he said his answer was “OK, thanks.” That's the right reply, and it's the most any of us owes her.

Source: Variety, retrieved October 19, 2026. Other sources: TechCrunch, TechCrunch (2).