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The film "You Can See Everything" blurs fact and ambiguity, avoiding conventional documentary truth claims.

Fielder uses language debates to reveal Holmes’ elusive communication style, not miscommunication.

"You Can See Everything" explores Holmes’ inaccessible inner world without promising answers.

Note: This post may contain spoilers.

The A24 (meta-) documentary You Can See Everything about Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the now-defunct health technology company Theranos, got the internet abuzz. If you watch it, you will see why. The feature is both thought-provoking and unusual, and the main subjects featured in it—Holmes and her partner Billy Evans—have the screen presence of highly-paid actors playing Holmes and Evans.

One of the criticisms made is that the film is inaccurate. One can see why some people think that. There is, for instance, a scene in the film in which Holmes and one of the directors, Nathan Fielder, debate the meaning of the word “can” in the expression “can run every test.” Holmes insists that the device she is showing to Fielder “can run every test.” Fielder suggests that Holmes is not using the word “can” in the usual way. (Note: In one sense of “can,” I can defeat the world chess champion at chess, namely, it is not physically impossible for me to move the pieces on the board so as to score a victory. But if I say I can defeat the world chess champion, you will take me to be saying something different and altogether false. It may also be that Holmes’ device can run every test in some such sense. That, of course, is not the sense that would have........

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