Becky welcomes her friend, writer and former Hollywood book club member Eliot M Gerstel to talk about one of her favorite films of the year: YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING, the extraordinary new documentary from Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim about Elizabeth Holmes.
This conversation has actually been eight years in the making. Back in 2018, Becky, Eliot and three other Sony executives read John Carreyrou's Bad Blood together for their Hollywood book club and became completely fascinated by Holmes, Theranos and the almost unbelievable story of how she convinced some of the most powerful people in the world to believe in her.
Years later, Becky and Eliot finally get to return to that story together — but YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING takes them somewhere neither could have anticipated.
The film follows Holmes and her partner Billy Evans in the period before she enters federal prison, with Fielder and Oppenheim gaining astonishing access to their home, their relationship and their attempts to control the story being told about her.
Becky was lucky enough to see the film at an advance screening at the Academy Museum, followed by a Q&A with Fielder and Oppenheim moderated by Bill Hader, and walked out feeling like she had experienced something unlike any documentary she had ever seen.
In a spoiler-filled conversation, Becky and Eliot dig into the film's many layers and the questions it raises about Elizabeth Holmes, the people around her and our own instinct to decide whom we believe.
They explore why so many intelligent and powerful people trusted Holmes in the first place, whether she genuinely believes she did nothing wrong, the unsettling absence of remorse they see in her and the strange power she continues to have over people who spend time with her.
Eliot argues that the documentary ultimately becomes something much bigger than a story about Theranos or corporate fraud: an exploration of trust itself. Why do we choose to believe another person? What instincts tell us someone is safe or trustworthy? And what happens when those instincts fail us?
Becky and Eliot also unpack the fascinating and increasingly unsettling presence of Billy Evans, Nathan Fielder becoming a character inside his own documentary, the complicated empathy that develops when a filmmaker spends years with his subject, and the blurred lines between truth, performance and the version of ourselves we choose to show other people.
The deeper the film goes, the harder it becomes to know exactly whom — or what — to trust.
They also talk about Fielder and Oppenheim's extraordinary filmmaking choices, the documentary's wildly funny and deeply disturbing tonal shifts, the phenomenon surrounding its secretive production and viral marketing, and why a film running nearly three hours can somehow feel like it flies by.
Then it's time to turn up the volume. Eliot asked for perhaps the broadest Becky Challenge subject yet: 20th-century music. So The Becky Challenge: Soundtrack of the Century takes him through 25 questions spanning jazz, classic rock, Motown, pop, alternative, hip-hop, landmark albums, legendary performers and nearly an entire century of music. Can Eliot prove that his musical knowledge really does stretch across the decades and earn the title of Music Icon?
Trust your instincts... and come hang out with Becky!
Host: Becky D'Anna
Guest: Eliot M Gerstel
Producer: Kyle Reardon
Produced and Edited By: KPR Media
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