Warning: This story contains major spoilers for You Can See Everything
From the secret screening at Telluride to the star-studded showcases in New York and Los Angeles, the filmmakers and publicity team behind You Can See Everything have requested that viewers keep the film’s meta twist a secret. Even now that the documentary is in theaters — and setting box-office records over its opening weekend — most reviewers, journalists, and audience members are trying to maintain the sanctity of the surprise, withholding any mention until the requisite layers of spoiler warnings.
Now it’s our turn. If you’ve remained clueless to this point and wish to continue to be, for the love of God, eject now. Otherwise, read on at your own risk.
Those who made it this far undoubtedly know that You Can See Everything chronicles Elizabeth Holmes’ final weeks of freedom before her prison sentence for her role in the Theranos fraud case. She and her partner, Billy Evans, invite a documentary crew led by directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim into their home, ostensibly to make a case for her innocence.
During one of many standout, cringeworthy scenes in the film, Fielder shows the couple the Hulu series The Dropout, starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes — a role that earned the Mean Girls fan favorite an Emmy statuette among other prizes. Midway through You Can See Everything, Holmes is locked up in a Texas federal prison, so Fielder brings the real Seyfried into the picture. After screening footage of Holmes for the actress, he asks her to once again channel the fallen tech titan in a series of reenactments opposite Christopher Abbott — who shared the screen with Seyfried in The Testament of Ann Lee and is joining Marvel’s forthcoming X-Men reboot — as Evans.
Seyfried adds a whole new dimension to the film’s second and third acts, including some awkward interactions with Holmes and Evans and plenty of bracing questions for Fielder. Should the film continue its upward trajectory, she could very well find herself in contention for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar to go along with her Emmy and Golden Globe for playing Holmes in the earlier series.
Even though You Can See Everything is billed as a documentary feature, and expected to be entered as such, Academy rules permit the film “to qualify for awards in other categories if [it] meet the specified requirements and submission deadlines.”
To qualify for the acting categories, a performer must have a role “credited in the film’s legal billing.” Seyfried, Abbott, and the other performers involved in You Can See Everything’s reenactments are all accordingly name-checked in the end credits.
By the letter of the law, Seyfried would thus be eligible to mount an acting campaign for the Oscars. And while the tight-lipped A24 team has yet to confirm whether it will push Seyfried, a weekend appearance might have tipped the distributor’s hand.
Seyfried, along with Fielder, was one of many potential contenders in attendance at the Academy Museum Gala on Saturday — an event that allowed for plenty of networking with and charming of voters and industry peers. Even though Seyfried hysterically dodged questions about her participation while walking the carpet, her presence suggested she is being positioned for a run, as You Can See Everything has aspirations beyond Best Documentary Feature. The film is on pace to become the first documentary nominated for Best Picture, vaulting to No. 9 on our experts leaderboard since opening in limited release.
However, while Seyfried is eligible for a second Academy Award nomination (she was previously up for Best Supporting Actress for 2020’s Mank), neither she nor the film can qualify for precursors like the Golden Globes and the SAG Actor Awards, both of which stipulate that only scripted movies can be submitted for consideration.
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