Is she brilliant or crazy?

You Can See Everything (now screening at commercial theatres) is one of the most astonishing documentaries I’ve seen. Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s immersion – and it was actually a physical immersion – into the lives of infamous medical test device Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her family, is a study itself of the documentary-making process, interviewing techniques and rudimentary basics of journalism breaching people’s private and public boundaries. Holmes was sentenced 11 years for committing fraud by falsely leading investors to donate millions in what she claimed was a small portable device that, with a drop of blood, could home diagnose a range of illnesses. For some reason – the film doesn’t explain – the documentarians were asked by her family (her husband Billy Evans and children are also featured) to actually live with them in their beachfront home in southern California, in the 34 days leading up to when she was to report to a minimum-security prison in Texas. Perhaps the reason she did is because she sees herself as completely innocent. It’s this claim that the filmmakers explore. Well, Fielder, anyway, since he’s the one on camera. Fielder assumes the role of investigative reporter confronting Holmes on her device’s legitimacy and morality in touting a medical breakthrough. Yet she has no doubt the unit (“Theranos” the name is a combination of “therapy” and “diagnosis”) has scientific validity, it just must be fine-tuned. And she's optimistic she will try to re-introduce it again. Holmes shows no guilt or reflection. As per her photos she is wide-eyed, smiling and almost giddy with the euphoria over the supposed scientific breakthrough, illegal as it was. But she’s also of a strange psychological makeup. She’s brilliant scientifically but can’t grasp basic concepts, as when Fielder asks her the meaning of the famous Abbott and Costello skit Who’s on First? It’s a puzzle to her and she defends herself by saying, “I’m literal.” The film widely benefits from a terrific hauntingly abstract score and inventive extreme close-up facial shots, and Fielder is as much a character as Holmes as he pries, confronts, doubts and yet empathizes with her. The film is almost three hours and flies by as we’re immersed in the world of this journalistic dynamic.