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You Can See Everything review
YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING:
NATHAN FIELDER AND LANCE OPPENHEIM STAY AT ELIZABETH HOLMES’ HOUSE, AND ONE HELL OF A DOCUMENTARY COMES OUT OF IT!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: **** out of 4
A24
Elizabeth Holmes in You Can See Everything
The untold story of infamous Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holme,s in the days leading up to her prison sentence comes to light in You Can See Everything, a documentary film from A24 and directors Nathan Fielder (The Rehearsal, The Curse, The History of Concrete) and Lance Oppenheim (Some Kind of Heaven, Spermworld, Primetime). Gotta admit, I don’t usually review documentaries that often, but this movie was getting hyped up like mad, and flocks of people were going out to the theater to watch this 3-hour documentary on Elizabeth Holmes, so I had to know what all the fuss was about.
Prior to seeing this, I watched the HBO documentary film, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, in order to get proper context about who exactly Elizabeth Holmes is and the shit that went down at her company, which is a solid documentary in its own right. Definitely check it out if you have HBO Max before WB/Paramount takes it away.
But y’all don’t care about what I have to say about that film; you want to know my thoughts on this one, and…yeah, this movie is quite a ride. I do have some issues with the runtime, but I was fascinated and engaged throughout…and this is coming from someone who just found out about Elizabeth Holmes recently.
The film follows Fielder, Oppenheim, and their documentary crew being invited by Elizabeth Holmes and her husband, Billy Evans, to document their lives at a rental beach house in California 31 days before Holmes begins her eleven-year prison sentence for defrauding investors with her company, Theranos. What begins as an intimate portrait of an enigmatic felon soon becomes a mind-bending three-year journey into the abyss.
The film also features Amanda Seyfried (Mean Girls, Les Misérables, The Housemaid), who portrayed Holmes in The Dropout miniseries.
Overall, You Can See Everything is a mind-warping and exhilarating experience which I don’t usually call a documentary, but this film did exactly that. The movie just has this unnerving and foreboding tone all throughout the runtime, complete with an ominous music score by Ari Balouzian, as if you, the audience, are with the documentarians and this manipulative and potentially insane person.
You’re never fully sure whether or not Fielder is being scammed by Holmes or if he actually is uncovering something about her, er which I find very interesting, especially for a documentary where people are expected to get their facts right. But because Elizabeth Holmes is such an unstable and manipulative person who may or may not blur the truth, the film crew’s interactions with her are both fascinating and genuinely chilling.
The movie also focuses quite a bit on Holmes’ family,y namely her husband, Billy, who starts off as being very charming and supportive, but over the course of the film, he has some sinister goals of his own regarding the production. Honestly, the second half of the film, after Holmes goes to prison, focuses a lot on Billy, what his motives are, and whether or not Holmes is in on it,t and the movie is black and white about it with no clear answer, which is so unconventional for a documentary.
I don’t really know much about Nathan Fielder outside of the fact that he’s a comedian with experience with documentary-ish filmmaking, and having him take on a project like this and injecting comedy into realism, I thought, was very clever. There’s this great scene where he’s showing Elizabeth an Abbott and Costello sketch to see how she reacts to it and if she understands the joke, and her reaction is…odd.
I was never bored during this and was invested and engaged throughout, but I will admit this doesn’t need to be 3 hours long. It should be long because a lot of stuff happens in the film, but there are scenes that could be trimmed down a bit and other details that could have been fleshed out more.
My writing cannot do this movie justice because much of its enjoyment comes from the shock factor of what you’re watching and how unpredictable it gets. You Can See Everything is a riveting, informative, and above all, haunting documentary on one of the most narcissistic, mentally unhinged, and infamous businesswomen in the country that deserves to be seen. I won’t soon be forgetting this unsettling descent into Holmes’ psyche anytime soon.
Sense and Sensibility review
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY:
AN INDIFFERENT BUT LOVELY NEW SCREEN ADAPTATION!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4
FOCUS FEATURES
Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles in Sense and Sensibility (2026)
Jane Austen’s classic story comes to life…again in Sense and Sensibility, the latest film adaptation of her 1811 novel of the same name. I’ve never read the original book, but I have seen the 1995 adaptation of Sense and Sensibility directed by Ang Lee and starring Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet, and Hugh Grant…in fact, I revisited it before seeing this one.
I am far from being a Jane Austen expert, but out of the handful of film adaptations of her work I’ve seen, the 1995 Sense and Sensibility is among the best I’ve seen alongside the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice and the 2020 adaptation of Emma. I found the 1995 adaptation very captivating and charming, and the performances by Thompson, Rickman, Winslet, and Grant are all stellar.
Now we have this new film version of the story directed by Georgia Oakley (Blue Jean) in her second feature directing effort and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones (Fresh, Where the Crawdads Sing, Twisters) as Elinor Dashwood. I didn’t really have any expectations with this one; I saw the trailer in theaters a few times, didn’t think much of it, but it looked good.
Upon seeing it…yes, it is a good adaptation of Sense and Sensibility that hits all the familiar beats from the story while focusing more on the Dashwood sisters’ relationship this time around, which is an interesting approach. However, I personally was more engaged in the 1995 version because of the powerhouse cast and performances it had, but that’s not a strike against this film; it is a faithful adaptation that stays true to the source material…as far as I’m aware.
The film follows the Dashwood sisters, Elinor (Jones), Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles-Hanna, The Doll Factory, The Chronology of Water), and Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach-So Awkward Academy, Hamnet, Shelter) who live with their mother (Caitríona Balfe-Super 8, Now You See Me, Belfast) and are at risk of facing poverty when Mr. Dashwood’s estate is passed to their half-brother, John (Tom Brooke-The Boat That Rocked, Sherlock, Preacher) and his snobbish wife, Fanny (Stacy Martin-All the Money in the World, The Brutalist, The Testament of Ann Lee). This forces the Dashwood family to seek financial security through marriage in the form of suitors: Edward Ferrars (George MacKay-Peter Pan (2003), 1917, Femme), Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum-The Worst Person in the World, The Hypnosis, The Royal Hotel), and a potential third suitor in the form of John Willoughby (Frank Dillane-Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Fear the Walking Dead, In the Heart of the Sea).
The film also stars Fiona Shaw (Jane Eyre (1996), Harry Potter franchise, The Black Dahlia) as Mrs. Jennings, Turlough Convery (Killing Eve, My Mad Fat Diary, Sanditon) as Sir John Middleton, Chloe Pirrie (The Crown, The Queen’s Gambit, Emma (2020)) as Lady Middleton, Eliot Sumner (The Gentlemen, No Time to Die, Ripley) as Mr. Palmer, and Ceara Coveney (Hoard, The Wheel of Time) as Lucy Steele.
Overall, the latest Sense and Sensibility doesn’t really add much new to the story outside of focusing more on the sisters compared to previous adaptations, but it’s still a beautifully crafted and exceptionally acted film that I’m sure Jane Austen enthusiasts will flock to see. Again, my only previous experience with Sense and Sensibility is the 1995 movie, and this version hits all the important scenes: Marianne tripping and hurting her ankle and being carried by Willoughby, Elinor realizing that Edward isn’t engaged to Lucy in the end and rushes back to him, Willoughby turning out to be a scumbag, etc.
The acting is solid throughout. Daisy Edgar-Jones coming off of Emma Thompson from the 1995 film is some big shoes to fill, but she plays Elinor very well and brings a lot of likable energy and emotional weight to the character, and has strong chemistry with Esmé Creed-Miles’ Marianne, with Jones being the “Sense” and Miles being the “Sensibility”. Frank Dillane is a huge standout as Willoughby, who does a fantastic job flip-flopping between being charming and snarly; I honestly thought he portrayed the part better than Greg Wise in the 1995 version.
George MacKay plays Edward well, though admittedly I couldn’t help but see Hugh Grant from the other movie every time he was onscreen. The likeness between MacKay and Grant is uncanny, but both actors fit their versions of Edward Ferrars with their dashing good looks and charisma.
The movie is also beautiful to look at in terms of the cinematography and production design; sure, there’s plenty of 18th-century architecture, but this film really focuses a lot on nature with tons of close-ups of insects, plants, and several scenes that take place outside. It’s not really a full-on spectacle or something that really takes advantage of the big screen, but if you can see it in a theater, do so.
Like I said, I personally have more attachment to the 1995 Sense and Sensibility mostly because of Thompson, Rickman, Winslet, and Grant’s performances, but this is a really solid adaptation of the story that faithfully brings the story to the screen in a unique enough way. Honestly, this is a pretty easy movie to recommend to someone. Are you a Jane Austen fan, or did you enjoy any of the other adaptations of Sense and Sensibility? Then, you’ll probably like this one too. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.
Whalefall review
WHALEFALL:
FIRST POSSESSED KIDS, THEN ZOMBIES, AND NOW A GIANT WHALE, AUSTIN ABRAMS HAS THE WORST LUCK!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: *** out of 4
20TH CENTURY STUDIOS
Austin Abrams screaming for help in Whalefall.
In the tradition of Austin Abrams (The Kings of Summer, Weapons, Resident Evil (2026)) having the absolute worst luck ever, he gets eaten by a giant whale in Whalefall, the new film from writer-director Brian Duffield (The Divergent Series: Insurgent, Spontaneous, No One Will Save You) and producer Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment, based on the novel of the same name by Daniel Kraus, who also co-wrote the screenplay alongside Duffield. The trailer definitely got my attention when I first saw it; Whalefall looked freaking terrifying and, in some ways, even more so than Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, surprisingly.
Honestly, I think I’d rather get mauled to death by a shark than eaten alive by a whale and slowly dying,g especially after seeing this film. Granted, I don’t think Whalefall is on par with Jaws, and I do have some issues with its structure and pacing, but I was on the edge of my seat a lot during my viewing.
The film follows college student Jay Gardiner (Abrams) returning home to California following the death of his estranged father and scuba diver, Mitt (Josh Brolin-Marvel Cinematic Universe, Dune trilogy, Weapons). Jay dives off the central Coast of California in search of his father’s remains, only to find himself trapped inside a whale with only one hour of oxygen left,t upon realizing the hard-earned scuba lessons from his father may be crucial for his survival and escape.
The film also stars Elizabeth Shue (The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting, Back to the Future: Parts II and III) as Jay’s mother Zara, John Ortiz (American Gangster, Fast & Furious, Kong: Skull Island) as Hewey, and Jane Levy (Suburgatory, Evil Dead (2013), Don’t Breathe) and Emily Rudd (Fear Street, One Piece (2023)) as Jay’s sisters Eva and Nan.
Overall, Whalefall is a very suspenseful and riveting journey inside of a whale that you could almost call the 127 Hours of whale movies, es except nowhere near as grisly (Granted, this film is rated PG-13, but there are some gnarly sequences). I say that because the majority of the movie takes place in one location; in 127 Hours' case, it was trapped between a boulder and a slot canyon,n and in this film’s case, it’s inside a whale’s stomach, ch with much of the character development being told via flashbacks.
I’ve never read the book (Didn’t even realize it was a book until I saw it in the credits), so I don’t know how faithful this movie is, but while a lot of the flashbacks between Abrams and Brolin are emotionally powerful and show the skills the former will eventually use inside the whale to escape, some of them are flat-out unnecessary to the point where the film gets silly in the last act. The movie started to lose me in the climax even though I was still invested in what was happening; it’s mostly because of one thing the film does with Brolin that felt awkward to me and didn’t match the rest of the movie.
With that said, if you’re claustrophobic or have a fear of being eaten alive by a large animal, this shit is frightening. The scene where Abrams gets eaten by the whale is intense, and seeing him slowly try to get out gets your blood pumping as you’re watching; that was all awesome and more than worth seeing on the big screen.
Like I said, the flashbacks kind of overstay their welcome, but Josh Brolin is amazing as the estranged father, a far better supporting role than in The Dog Stars a couple months ago. He just owns every scene that he’s in and gives the majority of the film’s drama, especially in the earlier half of the movie.
Austin Abrams gives an endearing performance as Jay, the man stuck in the whale,e though I will admit, I don’t think it’s nearly as memorable as his roles in Weapons or the new Resident Evil. I felt like those movies did a better job of getting me wrapped up in his character from the get-go, whereas all the investment and emotional levity here comes from flashbacks; still, I gave a shit about him and wanted to see him escape from the whale.
The CGI is damn impressive, especially the scene where the whale gobbles Abrams up, and the sound design is stellar (People bitched about Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday not being released in IMAX when actually, this movie deserved an IMAX release all along). The whale sounds blast through the movie theater speakers, rs and so does this sequence where the whale uses some sort of sonar blast to fend off an orca attack;ck, absolutely worth seeing on the big screen with amazing sound quality.
Whalefall isn’t exactly the 127 Hours or Jaws of whale movies, but it’s a compelling and scary adventure about survival with strong performances by Austin Abrams and especially Josh Brolin. Dive on in and get eaten yourself.
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