I've just seen what I've been told is 'Everything'

Nathan Fielder (left) questions Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything.

What the hell did I just watch? 

But can you, really?

If it's possible to emerge from a three-hour movie knowing less about its subject than you did going in, then that's the experience I had watching Nathan Fielder's You Can See Everything, his supposedly all-access look at now-imprisoned Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. 

After emerging from this surprisingly dreamlike and artsy film, I'm not sure if Holmes is a master manipulator or someone who genuinely cannot distinguish lies from the truth. I'm not sure how sincere Nathan Fielder, known for his deadpan demeanor and high-concept stunts/pranks (like Dumb Starbucks), intends this film to be. I'm not even 100% sure how to pronounce the name of actress Amanda Seyfried, who famously portrayed Holmes in Hulu's The Dropout and who reprises the role here. And, yes, that last one comes up as an issue in the film.

Is this movie a documentary about Holmes, revealing the flesh-and-blood woman behind the scandalous headlines? Sort of, though the lady herself disappears (to a Texas prison) about halfway through and is "present" only through brief phone calls and a hologram after that. Is it a meta-narrative about Fielder trying to make a movie about Holmes? Sort of, though Fielder doesn't really let us in on his editing process (which must have been an ordeal in and of itself). Is it a sequel to The Dropout? Again, sort of, though Seyfried is the only returning cast member from that series. Is it a three-hour meditation on the slippery, elusive nature of truth itself? That may be the most accurate label I can give it.