New Documentary Perfectly Captures What a Decade of Post-truth Has Done to Us

A tech-world documentary may seem an unlikely candidate for one of those movies people claim simply must be experienced in a theater. You Can See Everything makes a strong case all the same. There are moments in Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s beguiling profile of the disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes that inspire gasps, convulsive laughter and involuntary hand gestures. One such moment was especially resonant in my theater, though. (And be warned: There are very mild spoilers ahead.)

To put it as vaguely as possible, the moment involves Fielder attempting to pin down Holmes about her history of dishonesty. (As the trailer suggests, there’s a lot of that going on throughout the entire, plus-size runtime.) In this particular instance, Holmes says something so hard to believe, it can only be taken with a Texas-sized grain of salt. Since Fielder is a master of deadpan who has made a career out of soft-spoken understatement, his naked astonishment registers as volcanic: "Liz, what?!"

It’s a very funny moment, but it is more than that. There’s something cathartic at play, too. A decade into the post-truth era, as powerful people stand 10-toes-down on flagrantly false narratives, it's the kind of deeply human reaction to dishonesty many Americans have been craving. In his rejection of the line he's being asked to swallow, Fielder jars viewers out of whatever boiled-frog comfort we may have found in a timeline riddled with unreality, forcing us to see it with fresh eyes.

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