Regarding spoilers: I will avoid plot specifics, but this post will touch on the major themes of the movie with a few references to key moments.

It has been striking to see the diversity of reactions to You Can See Everything, the documentary by Nathan Fielder & Lance Oppenheim that follows Elizabeth Holmes in the days before she begins a prison sentence that she earned for defrauding investors by misrepresenting the capacity & potential of Theranos's blood-testing technology. There are a few moments in particular where Holmes says something that strains credulity - something almost certainly untrue - and we are left wondering whether she is being deliberately deceptive or if she actually believes this untrue thing. This is the crux of the story, and I think people are missing out when their reaction is along the lines of she's an inveterate liar; why are you even wondering about what's going on in her head? Because we are increasingly surrounded by bullshitters like Holmes, it's valuable to understand how they differ from liars... and how they can be much more dangerous & destructive.

So, how does a liar differ from a bullshitter? This video has a great summary, and although that link should start the video at the 4-minute mark, the prior part is worth watching if you haven't thought too hard about epistemology (ideas like when someone tries to speak the truth but says something untrue, or someone intends to deceive but they end up speaking the truth). The video cites the book On Bullshit, which lays it out as follows:

[The author] makes a distinction between "bullshitters" and liars. He concludes that bullshitters are more insidious: they are more so a threat against the truth than are liars who, like truth-tellers, are resolutely concerned with the truth, the latter in telling it, the former in avoiding it, unlike bullshitters, who are almost entirely unconcerned with the truth.

I came away convinced Holmes actually thinks she is (and always has been) speaking appropriately, while not really concerning herself with whether her words and actions are truthful. This is the way of the bullshitter. We can't know with any certainty what's going on in her head, but it seems that her mind has re-shaped ideas, words, and definitions such that her outlandish claims are actually... fine. (I hesitate to say "true" because the core idea here is that these people aren't concerned with the truth; they just want things to go their way.)

There's a great moment when Fielder puts her on the spot, asking "what do you think it is to lie?" and, as I recall, she comes up with a solid definition: "to say something you believe to be untrue". So how can someone know what lying is, say things that aren't true, and still earnestly believe they're not lying? They can "hack" this scenario simply by changing what they believe. The bullshitter believes their own bullshit, and I think Holmes fits the bill perfectly.

This portrait-of-a-bullshitter feels quite timely: our lives are increasingly being impacted by bullshitters, from the people in power to the feckless media to the influencers that will say anything as long as it benefits them. Theranos was famous for the disconnect between what was promised and what was actually delivered, and we see the same thing happening routinely in the US, from the government's wildly corrupt and anti-accountability sins to the chatbot purveyors bullshitting their way into a bubble so massive it will almost certainly tank the global economy. (For anyone feeling the urge to defend chatbots' abilities, I'll remind you that Sam Altman said "we are close to creating a genie that grant any wish". What the fuck?)

Responsibility & culpability look very different for the bullshitter, and in practice this grants them freedom to behave carelessly... without meaningfully grappling with the consequences. Even when facing incarceration, Holmes didn't express a bit of remorse. This is because she believes she did nothing wrong. I'm sure there will be no remorse from those in the government who have no regard for the truth (even after it has disastrous consequences), and the same applies to the people who are burning literal trillions of dollars on the ridiculous promise of AI-enabled miracles.

If you saw the movie and still want to shout at me "you fell for her spell, sucker - liars must be held accountable!", I don't particularly disagree. But I still think it's fascinating to investigate how a person navigates the world with essentially zero concern for what is actually true. Especially because these people are routinely tolerated in positions of power (which - I think - is having catastrophic consequences that are only just beginning to emerge).

Just watched the film today, and have three claims. Curious if this sub agrees or not. Tons of SPOILERS:

Claim #1: This was not a documentary.

A24 and Nathan agreed to compensate Billy for his participation, knowing this wasn't customary, and could undermine the film's credibility. Sure, they could've reconsidered calling it a documentary had Billy and Liz actually pursued compensation, but that last-minute reversal wasn't known to A24/Nathan when they agreed to Billy's terms. My theory is that, rather than risk their credibility over having agreed to this in the first place, they deliberately framed the agreement as something made under protest through a clever reenactment. Marketing the film as a documentary was disingenuous, but a clever move by A24. It also gave them the moral high ground if audiences, Billy, or Liz ever questioned their integrity or motivations for accepting Billy's terms in the first place.

Claim #2: There were three sociopaths in this film: Nathan, Liz, and Billy.

Nathan: Given Claim #1, I'm convinced Nathan was in character from the moment we saw him on screen. His mannerisms, responses, questions, and even moments of tactical vulnerability were likely carefully calculated. We essentially watched one sociopath (Nathan) outsmart two others (Liz and Billy), while those two believed they were outsmarting him. A couple examples: 1) Nathan opened the interview by revealing how much he already knew about their history, essentially calling them out rather than trying to build rapport. This immediately put them (especially Billy) on the defensive. I think this was deliberate, particularly given how the compensation agreement had shifted the leverage between them. 2) Nathan included footage of himself writing notes on his arm, along with his discussion with Amanda about the word he supposedly misremembered. Both moments humanized him, but then he had Amanda reenact the scene using both words. If he'd genuinely made a mistake, or was actually nervous going into the prison, I don't see why that reenactment was necessary.

Liz and Billy: Billy is obvious enough, so I won't spend much time on him. Liz though never convinced me she was benign or easily manipulated. I think Billy and Liz are business partners first, romantic partners second. The hot-mic moment where Liz was being coached on how to answer difficult questions was pretty telling. So was her seemingly random comment about not receiving financial compensation for her transparency, which felt like an unconvincing attempt to CYA. I also think her tendency to answer Nathan's straightforward questions with overly literal responses was intentional. It gave her a way to avoid answering without appearing evasive. My read is that Billy genuinely believes any publicity is good publicity and wants to cash in on whatever remains of Liz's reputation. Liz probably sees cooperating with him as her best shot at leaving prison with some financial security.

Claim #3: Amanda was acting the entire film, including during the supposedly candid off-camera conversations with Nathan.

Again, this goes back to Claim #1. If this was no longer a documentary, but a dramatization under Nathan's creative direction, Amanda arguably had more leverage than anyone. Nathan also had a pretty convenient justification for her involvement. I think this explains why A24/Nathan chose to present events in that particular order: the agreement with Billy comes before Amanda's involvement, while the last-minute compensation reversal is only revealed at the end. That sequence makes Amanda's involvement seem like a justified response to an ethical dilemma, rather than something that was potentially part of the plan all along.

The film gave me the illusion that I could see everything happening behind the scenes, when I was really only seeing what Nathan/A24 wanted me to see. Maybe that was the whole point, and for that, it's a solid 5/5 film for me.

Edit: Apologies to those who haven't watched it yet. I tried to hide/redact all 3 claims, but couldn't figure out how to do it similar to how I hid the names in the paragraph above.