The talk of the Telluride Film Festival is a little different this year.
Instead of a narrative film, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s “You Can See Everything” is a hybrid. According to reports it’s 90 minutes of a documentary, and then 90 minutes of something else entirely. It even features a well known actress playing a role she’s already played.
Apparently, they could have called this one “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”
Still, “You Will See Everything” will be considered a documentary for the Oscars. Bu there’s no rule that a doc can’t be also nominated for Best Picture. It almost happened with Michael Moore’s movies, “Bowling for Columbine,” and could have with his “Fahrenheit 911.”
I’m sure A24 will make a push for each category as “You Can See Everything” went off like an A bomb this weekend as the “surprise” screening at Telluride.
Fielder, known for his off beat shows on HBO like “The Rehearsal,” took a crew into the home of convicted swindler Elizabeth Holmes for a month before she went off to prison. Holmes was sentenced to 11 years for cooking up the fake Theranos project, in which she bilked investors over device that evaluate blood samples with the smallest test amount ever.
On paper it looked good, but the device itself never existed. And she knew it.
Fielder and crew spent the 30 days with Holmes and her family. Then she went off to prison and he made a movie with an actress playing Holmes so they could continue the conversation. (The actress is supposed to be a surprise, but you can figure it out.) It’s kind of genius and weird but I think the Telluride audience — the only one ever that saw it first — will never get over the shock twist.
Again, “You Can See Everything” clocks in at a stunning 174 minutes. A24 will release it in October. In all likelihood they’ll show it in Toronto this week, and then at the New York Film Festival. The question is, Will the twist be enough to carry it? Are people so interested in Holmes — who after all had a hit TV miniseries about her called “The Dropout” — that they’ll line up to see more of a deluded liar pleading her case?
Count me in.
