00:01:12.000In fact, it's not even really up for best documentary at the Oscars.
00:01:15.000They're going to try and get this thing nominated for best picture.
00:01:18.000I had an opportunity to watch it yesterday.
00:01:21.000A24 is launching an Oscar campaign for consideration across all the major categories, including best director for Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.
00:02:03.000But she kept telling the investors and the public that everything was working.
00:02:07.000And she raised hundreds of millions of bucks.
00:02:09.000Peak valuation for Theranos was $9 billion.
00:02:11.000And then she was charged in 2018 with wire fraud and conspiracy counts covering investors and patients.
00:02:17.000In 2022, a jury found her guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
00:02:23.000There were some patients who had sued her, claiming that basically she had said that she was processing their blood and she never really did it and all of the rest.
00:02:31.000She was sentenced to 11 years, three months in federal prison, and three years of supervised release.
00:02:36.000She tried to delay her incarceration in 2023.
00:02:39.000And she was eventually reported to federal prison in May 2023.
00:02:43.000She's eligible for parole theoretically in December of 2031.
00:02:46.000Okay, so the setup of the film is that Nathan Fielder, who's most famous for his series Nathan for You and the rehearsal, both of which are basically about Nathan Fielder pranking people.
00:03:00.000He's kind of a very, very high rent Sasha Baron Cohen in this way, I would say.
00:03:23.000Is she somebody who is basically manipulated by the men in her life and she didn't even know what she was doing?
00:03:29.000That question is never really answered in the film.
00:03:31.000So then there is a second question that is asked instead of that question, because the first question is never answered in the film as to whether Elizabeth Holmes is a sociopath or whether she is just basically half autistic.
00:03:43.000The question is, how were so many people taken in by her?
00:04:02.000The big beneficiary of all of this is Nathan Fielder.
00:04:06.000So there are several characters in the film and everybody ends up looking bad.
00:04:11.000If the basic thing you're supposed to take away is that everyone lies and that everyone takes advantage of everybody else and everyone can also be taken in, And so, in that way, it's kind of a puzzle box as to who's lying the most and who's bad and who's good.
00:04:23.000But in the end, it's a pretty nihilistic message that doesn't answer the central question.
00:05:38.000That's puretalk.comslash Shapiro to make the switch.
00:05:41.000Okay, so the first half of the film, he's living in her house, and you really don't get much from her other than she is deeply upset by the portrayal of her in a series on Hulu called The Dropout with Amanda Seafried, and that she is very upset at the prospect of her going to prison, which you can imagine why, and that The question is whether she really understands what she did in the first place.
00:06:04.000And the film seems to suggest maybe not.
00:07:11.000And if she didn't know about it, it means she's kind of a victim of the men in her life, including her husband, Billy.
00:07:18.000Now, I find all of this less than the sum of its parts.
00:07:20.000Like just watching it as an audience member, because none of the characters are likable, and because frankly, they all seem like narcissists, I didn't find anybody to really sympathize with, and I don't find any deeper questions being asked or answered.
00:07:34.000So I want to start with what I think happened when they were producing this film.
00:07:36.000So here is Nathan Fielder talking about what it was like to produce the film being confused.
00:07:42.000And not really knowing what was going on while they were filming with Elizabeth Holmes and her husband Billy.
00:07:49.000She seems so genuine at times, but then I'm like, no, I'm clocking, like tracking my thoughts and being like, okay, I know she's a liar.
00:08:00.000So I couldn't really, it was a weird mental thing.
00:08:04.000And, anyways, I think from there we were like, can we roll the dice on something if they're open to having cameras in?
00:08:11.000She was really taken by that David Blaine story, but I think.
00:08:15.000I don't know why it really fascinated her, and they were like, okay, you could come in and document.
00:08:20.000And then we said to A24, we cannot promise we'll deliver anything on this.
00:08:27.000We don't know what the story is, but we wanted to see what will happen if we go with cameras.
00:08:32.000And they were like, okay, that's fine.
00:08:33.000And if you want to pull the plug anytime, you can do it.
00:08:39.000And yeah, it wasn't until we started shooting that moments would happen, some of them that are in the film.
00:08:46.000And then after Lance and I would talk about what we thought happened there, and we'd be completely disagree on what something meant to us or what we thought was happening.
00:08:57.000And then we were like, oh, this is a really interesting thing.
00:09:00.000If we can't agree on what's happening, there's something here.
00:09:05.000Okay, so here's what I actually think happened in the production of this film.
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00:11:34.000You're relying in the first half of the film on the idea that Nathan Fielder is a reliable narrator because you don't know that they've actually agreed to pay the subjects of the documentary to be part of the documentary.
00:11:44.000So you'd think that he's telling you the truth, but he's clearly not.
00:11:50.000He's faking because, again, they agreed.
00:11:54.000Now, again, they try to make Billy into the villain for asking for the money, and he shouldn't ask for the money, obviously, and there are other reasons in the film why he's a villain.
00:12:03.000You are the ones who are saying we're going to film a documentary and you agree to violate the first rule of documentary filmmaking, which is that your subject is not a participant in the making of the film.
00:12:14.000So the rest of the film is basically an attempt to avoid the consequences of A24 and Fielder's decision to pay the participants in the film.
00:12:23.000Okay, which is really kind of shocking and strange.
00:12:35.000I think in the first 35 days, they came up with nothing.
00:12:37.000I think they have hundreds of hours of footage of nothing happening.
00:12:40.000And they have to somehow craft that into a compelling narrative.
00:12:42.000And so they decided to retcon the entire story into a story about whether Billy Evans wanted to be paid or not.
00:12:53.000And therefore, they decided to basically rewrite the whole story into a story about lying and a meditation on lying and all the rest of all of this.
00:13:00.000So Nathan Fielder is playing a giant prank on everybody.
00:13:05.000Okay, now, again, I want to go back to the characters for a second and who looks bad.
00:13:07.000One of the people who looks the worst in this is Amanda Seafried.
00:13:09.000So Amanda Seafried is the actress who played Elizabeth Holmes in the Hulu special, The Dropout.
00:13:15.000And I believe she won an Emmy Award for it.
00:13:19.000So, one of the key things to know about Elizabeth Holmes in this film is that Elizabeth Holmes is very upset about her portrayal by Amanda Seafried in that series.
00:13:28.000She thinks it's inaccurate, she thinks it's a perversion of who she is, and all the rest.
00:13:32.000And Amanda Seafried early on finds that out and is clearly upset about that.
00:13:36.000And then she proceeds for the rest of the film to do reenactments of Elizabeth Holmes, like as Elizabeth Holmes.
00:13:49.000Like, she believes that Elizabeth Holmes is half a victim of her husband, Billy, and of manipulative men.
00:13:55.000But she's perfectly willing to go back in and play the same part.
00:13:58.000So it's kind of a prank on Amanda Seafree to that extent.
00:14:01.000It is a prank certainly on Elizabeth Holmes.
00:14:03.000It's a prank on Billy Evans, who, again, seems kind of scuzzy.
00:14:06.000I mean, there's a scene where he's fully naked for no reason other than he just wants to demonstrate that he's fully transparent.
00:14:12.000But most of all, most of all, this film is a prank on the audience.
00:14:16.000It's a prank on the audience because, I mean, again, Nathan Fielder tries to Do this weird sort of Alfred Hitchcock vertigo thing in the last half of the film, where the idea is that he's maybe being drawn in by Elizabeth Holmes because he's sort of in love with her.0.98
00:14:28.000If you believe that Nathan Fielder has some sort of crush on Elizabeth Holmes, you're silly.0.77
00:14:35.000So, what this really is in the end is a meditation on lying and being deceived.0.97
00:14:40.000And basically, his thesis in the end is everyone lies and everyone is deceived.
00:14:59.000Do you believe she's a victim and Billy's the victimizer and Fielder is a good hearted documentary, documentarian and Amanda Seafried is some sort of psychologist.
00:15:10.000So basically, the film is a mirror held up by Fielder to the audience because again, if the question is, how could someone like Elizabeth Holmes scam the smartest people in the world out of billions?
00:15:19.000The answer that he provides is, Anyone can be scammed by anyone.
00:15:23.000And the only person who comes out clean with that answer is Nathan Fielder.
00:15:26.000He's the only one who comes out clean.
00:15:28.000So, ironically, Nathan Fielder, who violates every rule in this film, right?
00:15:32.000He starts off as a documentarian, and then we find out actually he's not a documentarian at all.
00:15:36.000He's willing to pay the subject of the documentary.
00:15:38.000He starts out as the weather eye voice of the audience, and then he supposedly is drawn into her seductive charms.
00:15:48.000He starts off as the guy who's defending Elizabeth Holmes from her boyfriend.
00:15:52.000For her boyfriend misappropriating her image.
00:15:54.000And he ends up by having Amanda Seafried recreate every scene he has with Elizabeth Holmes in prison.
00:16:00.000So he violates every single moral rule to do this.
00:16:02.000And then at the end, he gets to basically claim, hey, I'm clean.
00:16:05.000It was all a big prank, which, you know, good for him.
00:16:09.000But I got to say, I find the entire enterprise from that angle distasteful because I think that the creators of film owe some form of actual authenticity to their audience.
00:16:21.000And if the whole thing is just a meta commentary on how anyone can be deceived, For any reason, including you right now sitting in the theater, it's a little bit too meta for me.
00:16:36.000Well, you know, if you think so, head on over to dailywire.comslash subscribe to watch the full show ad free or check out this crazy story here.