Theranos

 To me, Amanda Seyfried is immortal for "Mean Girls." She has had a fabulous career, though she has never topped that Tina Fey/Rachel McAdams masterpiece. For "Law and Order: SVU," Seyfried did terrific work as a kind of Elizabeth Smart stand-in. (Seyfried's guest appearance is legendary, and you have to do quite a bit to boost yourself above nearly thirty seasons of colleagues' SVU performances.)

I also recommend Seyfried in "The Housemaid." Finally, "The Dropout" is entertaining, but, like others, I wonder if it's morally questionable. I wonder, if you're going to fictionalize very recent events, why would you not change the names of the real-world people you're thinking about? (Seyfried is taken to task about this--but shouldn't the focus also include the "Dropout" scriptwriter, Liz Meriwether?)

Watching Nathan Fielder's clever "You Can See Everything," I admired several choices. First, I admired the choice to move *away* from Elizabeth Holmes one third of the way into the movie. This is presented as inevitable--because Holmes goes to jail. But the choice is not inevitable. You could build a full-length film around Holmes and Holmes's "archival interviews." Fielder doesn't do this. I think he senses that Holmes can become tedious and overwhelmingly irritating--and so he moves her to the sidelines right around the one-hour mark.

Second, I admire Fielder's recruitment of Amanda Seyfried. Fielder has major "Hollywood capital" because of his Emma Stone collaboration. If Fielder were just a semi-anonymous journalist, I imagine that the Oscar nominee Seyfried would have rejected his invitation. But working with Fielder is a way for Seyfried to raise *her* profile. Fielder shrewdly takes advantage of his own status--his "Apex Mountain" momentum--to make the movie he wants to make. Additionally, Seyfried seems particularly raw and unhinged in this film. It's odd for an A-lister to be so candid. Seyfried mentions a history of faking her orgasms; she also gleefully discusses (and then acts on) her wish to entrap an actual civilian, someone outside the Hollywood galaxy. A little research reveals that Seyfried has recently split from her spouse--the beloved theater actor Thomas Sadoski. I think it's possible--if Seyfried were in a different era in her own personal life--we might not have landed ourselves such a wild and wacky Fielder movie.

Third, I admire Fielder's restraint. There are several "jaw-drop" moments. For example: Holmes's romantic partner waves his dick at the camera. Holmes appears incapable of whisking egg yolks with a kitchen utensil. (As others have noted, this is truly unnerving.) And Holmes claims--perhaps implausibly--to have no understanding of the famous comedy routine "Who's on First?" Each of these moments seems to call out for many additional scenes of analysis and speculation--but Fielder omits the speculation. He lets the weirdness stand on its own. To me, that choice is impressive and powerful.

Here is what I think about Elizabeth Holmes. I think there is something limiting about the term "criminal insanity." I think we apply the label to people--and we feel comforted, we feel that we're looking at someone who is fundamentally "different" or even "alien" or "alien-adjacent." It's clear that (a) Holmes is deeply, dangerously dishonest, (b) Holmes has endured multiple traumas, (c) Holmes is in desperate need of a therapeutic intervention, and (d) Holmes would have been viewed in a more forgiving light if she had not been a woman. It's possible to feel sympathy for her while also finding her behavior repugnant. Two things can be true at one time. Having realized this, I just think Holmes is not as interesting as anyone might want her to be. She quickly begins to grate on one's nerves--or at least on this particular viewer's nerves.

As the Times noted, Fielder is seriously indebted to my favorite writer, Janet Malcolm. Malcolm wrote about "truthiness" and slippery journalism long, long before the era of Trump. To omit Malcolm's name from the film is at least a mildly disrespectful act.

All that said, I enjoyed Fielder's documentary--and I recommend it.