When you first watch this teaser for A24’s You Can See Everything, you’ll take it at face value, which in turn will become a strange mirror to what you’re watching, which isn’t a new horror or psychological thriller, it’s a documentary. And somehow this makes it even more unsettling, and if you know Elizabeth Holmes’ history, then there’s a mountain to unpack.

Created by directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the documentary was filmed 34 days before the notorious Holmes was sent to prison, and during that time she invited a film crew to document her every move. Reportedly, what begins as an intimate portrait of a felon becomes ‘a 3-year journey into the abyss’.

If you don’t know her history, Holmes was the founder of a blood-testing company called Theranos, one that claimed it could perform a host of vital tests with a very small drop of blood, when in fact it couldn’t – something that was eventually revealed via an investigative report by The Wall Street Journal. Consequentially charged with fraud, along with her older partner Ramesh Balwani, the story made its way in a book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup and it was turned in a miniseries, The Dropout.

For me, the human psyche is always an interesting one. This film is likely to be uncomfortable but fascinating, possibly from a woman who maybe had the right intentions nearly 25 years ago, but fell so far from what was ever intended, that the lie became the reality, and maybe in a traumatic sense, we never return from that. While she clearly took advantage of thousands of people, if we play Devil’s advocate for a moment, it’s hard to tell what happens to the mind unless you’ve been wrapped up in such things and, let’s be clear, I’m not defending anything. I’m just eager to see how Nathan’s study develops.

Watch the trailer below, and take note of a line that once heard will never be forgotten, I have little doubt that “Why would I deceive you?” will make its way into the collective psyche, as it’s embedded with a stare so intense that’s following it up with “I’m always being real” just plays into the strange and surreal but true setup this nearly 3-hour documentary (!)

You Can See Everything comes to cinemas soon