'As famous and defiant as ever': Why Elizabeth Holmes remains the US's most fascinating fraudster

Once a symbol of tech's promise, Holmes was brought down by her false claims about a blood-testing device. Now gripping new film You Can See Everything explores her baffling character.

Nathan Fielder did not set out to make a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes. As he explained on stage after the premiere of You Can See Everything at the New York Film Festival two weeks ago, at first he was just curious to meet her. He was far from alone in wondering about a woman who has captivated public attention, for better and then for worse, for more than a decade.

Warning: This article contains mild spoilers for You Can See Everything

In 2014 Holmes was heralded as a self-made billionaire and founder of Theranos, a health technology company that claimed to have an invented a device that could diagnose illnesses with a single pinprick of blood. She had cultivated a striking image, encapsulated in her appearance on the cover of Fortune magazine: a disconcerting wide-eyed stare, bright red lips and a Steve Jobs-style black turtleneck. But she became an even more fascinating figure after her spectacular fall, when it turned out the device wasn't working and sometimes gave false results. Convicted of defrauding investors, she went to federal prison in May 2023.

Holmes's continuing fame has been perfectly in sync with the times: once a glamorous symbol of tech's promise in the heady days of Silicon Valley, she is an avatar of danger and overreach today, when scepticism about big tech is rampant. Beyond that, the fact that her company dealt with people's health added a visceral charge to its failures.

In 2019 a Guardian article succinctly captured a few other reasons behind the public's apparently endless interest in her, calling Holmes's story "a true crime saga with a dash of Fyre Fest-schadenfreude and the added bonus of an icy blonde with a mysteriously deep voice". Her case has already fuelled The Inventor, a trenchant documentary by Alex Gibney, as well as a popular podcast, The Dropout, and a dramatic series of the same name, which earned Amanda Seyfried an Emmy for her vivid portrayal of Holmes.

Now there is You Can See Everything – a wild, ironically titled, often comic hall-of-mirrors, which is one of buzziest films of recent times. Standby lines for the New York premiere went around the block. Festival screenings were followed by critical praise that used words like "masterpiece", and there has been speculation the film could land an Oscar nomination for best picture – the first time ever for a documentary.

The new documentary's genesis

Fielder and his co-director, Lance Oppenheim, followed Holmes, her partner, Billy Evans, and their two small children in the weeks just before she reported to prison. Her decision to give them such access seems part of a strenuous attempt to declare her innocence and reform her image. Shortly before going to prison........

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