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On Monday, we talked about You Can See Everything, the Elizabeth Holmes documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, screening at the NY Film Festival to another spate of rapturous reviews from critics. I find it to be one of the more bemusing detours of this timeline that a big production Tom Cruise movie has bombed, meanwhile a three-hour documentary is being received like ecstatic ambrosian manna from heaven. Anyway, in our previous coverage, after commenting on a critic’s note that Holmes and her partner, Billy Evans, had a hard time ceding control of their own portrayal, I posed the following query: “It makes me wonder, especially on the heels of Holmes choosing this moment to come back online, if either of them has seen the finished film.” Well, Fielder and Oppenheim zipped to LA for a screening on Tuesday, and during a post-show Q&A the filmmakers were kind enough to answer my question: no, neither Holmes nor Evans have seen the completed doc. And the reason is because the filming experience was filled with a lot of bad blood. (ba-dum tss!)

Oppenheim revealed that neither Holmes nor Evans have watched the film that chronicled the disgraced Theranos founder’s last month at home before going to prison after being convicted on four investor-related counts in 2022.

“Neither of them have seen the film. Elizabeth is still incarcerated; Billy hasn’t seen it,” Oppenheim, 30, said, chalking it up to a now-tense relationship with the couple.

As Fielder, 43, and the documentary crew worked to finish the film, Evans “started trying to exert a level of control over the process that made it very hard to engage with him,” Fielder elaborated.

“It was uncomfortable for us and also A24 and everyone. And I think we sort of had to stop,” he said. “I think communication broke down basically, and we’ve been in that, like, state for a little bit. So it’s been challenging in that way.”

Fielder said he was “never” really certain why Holmes and Evans had asked him and Oppenheim to document that sliver of their lives, as neither seemed particularly familiar with either director’s prior work.

Both filmmakers were abnormally anxious through the whole experience, Oppenheim revealed. They had moved into the couple’s guest house, where they grew increasingly concerned that the space had hidden surveillance devices. Ultimately, they ordered a device to try to debug the guest house.

“We were in a conspiracy thriller of our own, we all were paranoid,” Oppenheim said.

“I still am not sure to this day, like, what I experienced, and it’s one of the reasons I’m excited for it to come out and more people see it,” Fielder added. “It was just a small group for so long, and I actually think maybe it being out there, everyone can help me understand what I went through a little bit — or what we all went through.”

You Can See Everything, the first project about Holmes she agreed to take part in, shares an intimate glimpse of Holmes’ last days at home before she was incarcerated by tracing “her every move” through “a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss,” the official synopsis reads.

[From People]

“Evans ‘started trying to exert a level of control over the process that made it very hard to engage with him.’” Here’s my positive take: it seems like Holmes and Evans are well matched. Conversely, to borrow one of my late father’s best quips: it’s really considerate of them to take each other out of circulation. So the behavior of Mr. & Mrs. Delusional is not surprising. What I do find curious, is how affected Fielder and Oppenheim became during filming, and seemingly still are to this day. They sound downright battle fatigued, and it’s three years later! After the first screening, the big unveiling in Telluride, Fielder made a similar comment to the post-show audience, about wanting feedback from others on what he went through on screen. I definitely did not get the sentiment at the time (and probably was a little snarky about it, my bad), but it’s making more sense to me now with the extra context. So, selfishly, I’m glad Fielder and Oppenheim stuck it out for what promises to be the most bonkers existential meditation on narcissism, served with a big helping of horror vibes and a surprise dash of nudity. Something tells me three hours may feel too short.