- Year: 2026
- Rating: ★★★★★
- Reviewed: October 21, 2026 (rewatch)
There’s a new Elizabeth Holmes doc out that’s supposed to be nuts
The feigning of innocence is captured so effectively here. It’s something in which Holmes and Fielder are both well-versed. Seyfried and Evans wield their weapons more openly because they know they’re entering rooms as a charismatic actor and a cartoonishly masculine tech bro with generational wealth.
Whether it’s entirely constructed or not, there is a romantic arc between Holmes and Fielder that tracks two people really seeing each other. You almost get the sense that, when Nathan goes for that swim she requests, she’ll drop all facades and tell him how much she’s spiraling. The facts of her life and her relationships loom so large that she can only survive by shapeshifting yet again into someone who just isn’t coming across clearly.
Nathan pretending not to be a more critical thinker in Holmes’s presence is probably his go-to tactic to make the content for which he’s best known. What throws him for a loop is that she mirrors that same aloofness and puts him in a position where he has to put up or shut up. These two are both at their most compelling when they need to make calculations in the moment. They both desperately cling to rehearsal, repetition, and an ironclad sense of how they present themselves to us. These are fragile things we all traffic in to participate in our own stories.
Seyfried as spectator and Evans as brazen opportunist end up squaring off because the things they’re clinging to are different forms of seduction and being able to work a room. Amanda is such a charming, relatable audience surrogate because she vocalizes what we’re all feeling just as it bubbles to the surface. Anyone in our lives who enthusiastically advocates for the more gut-level emotions that animate us will win our affection almost instantly. Seyfried also has a personal stake in a certain kind of justice she hopes will absolve her of guilt that builds watching Elizabeth supposedly crumble.
As all of our key players make decision after decision to pursue their own versions of truth and justice, Elizabeth’s perceived psychology becomes the Rosetta Stone for everyone else’s. So many of our decisions require justifications based more on feeling than fact. When you’re far enough down the road, you’ll maintain the narrative that got you there because the mere suggestion of full transparency, especially with yourself, is terrifying.
Originally posted on Letterboxd · Read the spoiler-free review · Read the spoilers essay