In a STAT opinion essay, veteran medical reporter Matthew Herper wrestles with his own enjoyment of Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes film, "You Can See Everything." Herper interviewed Holmes onstage twice during the Theranos boom, and he argues the movie never gets sufficiently technical about the FDA action that forced Theranos to stop marketing most of its finger-prick tests. He recalls asking Holmes about the agency's problem with the company's blood-sample container, the nanotainer, and says she pointed to another version that never surfaced.
Herper lists other Theranos misstatements: claims of military deployment, living alone, pharmaceutical endorsements, and the Edison machine's test capabilities. In the film, he says, these are treated as more debatable than the record shows. At a 2016 meeting of clinical chemists, Holmes presented a jury-rigged prototype that researchers said could not do what the company had claimed. Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz told Herper he felt like yelling at the screen while watching.
For Herper, the film's appeal is exactly what worries him. He draws a distinction between authenticity—Holmes seeming convinced by her own words—and honesty, which requires speaking true things. "You Can See Everything" may be a character study, he writes, but brushing aside the evidence lets her superpower work on audiences again.