The surprise revelation of Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, You Can See Everything, has been one of the biggest stories coming out of Fall Film Festival Season so far. People have strong opinions over the fact that someone made another film about the convicted fraudster. Meanwhile, the critics and industry folks invited to Telluride’s super-secret screening last week seemed to go bananas for it. After watching the one-minute teaser trailer, a frighteningly close-up shot of Holmes and filmmaker/protagonist Fielder, I described the interaction as “two humanoids sussing each other out.” The thing is, it’s intentional performance art on Fielder’s part. But Holmes? Let’s just say, her “humanoid” comes more naturally. If you think that’s mean of me to say, it’s nothing compared to the diagnosis of body language expert Susan Constantine, who has been following Holmes since her meteoric rise, and claims she was hip to Holmes’ lies as far back as 2013. Upon studying the teaser, Constantine shared her assessments with the New York Post. In short: Holmes looks like a psychopath.

The stare: Holmes’ wild-eyed, unblinking gaze and repeated insistence that she’s “not deceiving” filmmakers has sparked a flurry of online commentary since a trailer for the doc, titled “You Can See Everything,” was released after its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival over the weekend. … “She’s got laser-focused eye contact, wide-eyed, no blinking — not even a little blinking…It’s like a stalker stare, which is what everybody is talking about,” body language expert Susan Constantine told The Post.

‘Massive clusters of deception’: “A lot of psychopaths do that because they’re trying to be convincing. She has the raised eyebrows, staring eyes and wide-open smile, which is also what we call “dooping delight,’” Constantine said. The phrase refers to “that smile a person gets if they are pulling over a big whopper and they feel like they’re being successful with it,” she explained. “Natural expressions don’t freeze on the face — they are on and off…which is how I know it’s performative,” Constantine said. … Taken altogether, Homes’ questionable body language and bizarre choice of words reveal “massive clusters of deception,” according to Constantine, who also specializes in statement analysis.

Unusual phrasing: As the trailer begins with an extreme close-up of Holmes’ face, she tells Fielder: “I’m not that person. I can promise you that. I don’t have anything to deceive you on. Of course, I’m not deceiving you. I’m engaging with you as a human being. Why would I deceive you? There’s no — there’s no reason for me to do that,” she continues. According to Constantine, Holmes’ use of the present-tense is telling. “It’s like saying, ‘I don’t have anything in my pocket to deceive you on — right now’…instead of just, ‘No, I’m not deceiving you,’” Constantine explained. “She’s answering the logic behind the accusation before giving the denial.”

Always acting: At another point in the clip, Holmes slightly softens her voice while tilting her head to the side — a shift that marks an attempt to seem vulnerable or likeable, Constantine said. … “Here, she’s not as commanding,” Constantine said about the trailer, and pointed to the lower-octave voice Holmes adopted in the early years of her bogus company in order to seem more authoritative in business settings. Today, “Her voice has softened in volume…it seems a little exhausted.” Still, the fraudster has long appeared to be “performative,” Constantine said, as well as “highly aware of how [she’s] being perceived.” “So it’s almost as if she is always acting and she’s not even in touch with her real self.”

[From NY Post]

Body language experts can sometimes seem hit-or-miss (or maybe that’s just the ones the Daily Mail uses), but this observation of Constantine’s intrigued me: “She’s answering the logic behind the accusation before giving the denial.” The accusation being that Holmes was deceiving Fielder, to which (humanoid) Holmes replied, “I’m engaging with you as a human being.” I clocked that phrasing the first time I watched the trailer as especially odd. Not only is it obviously not conversational language, there’s something telling about her instinct to insist she’s behaving like a human. It reminded me of being in an acting class where a teacher pointed out that, contrary to what you’d think would be logical, human behavior tends to direct others to the very thing they’re trying to hide. (My having just stood up and wrapped my cardigan closer around my stomach only served to illustrate the teacher’s point.) And yeah, there’s always something deeply unnerving about someone who doesn’t blink. At all. Anyway, if you want more, Constantine has a new book coming out in February — How to Spot a Liar in 7 Seconds — that uses Holmes as a case study. The sub-title is Protect Yourself from Criminals, Cons, Predators, and More. I assume the “more” refers to presidents.

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