I’m new to Nathan Fielder. I meant to watch everything prescribed in this list but didn’t get around to it. I’ve heard so much about The Curse, and despite living where it was filmed I still haven’t been able to watch it. My impression of the setup for You Can See Everything was that this was going to be Trickster versus Trickster versus You, Trickster.
I wasn’t wrong. There was a point in the second half of the movie where I felt pranked. I didn’t want Billy Evans to get a penny from me. He’s grotesque.
He’s Elizabeth Holmes’ soul mate or twin flame, too, but Nathan Fielder (as a shade of a character in this altered reality) takes issue with it. You’ll witness up close what appear to be his involuntary facial ticks during the infamous egg-beating scene. You’ll witness sustained eye contact and moments of almost uncomfortably close proximity between Liz and Nathan – and Nathan and Billy. And Billy’s penis. You’ll see what almost looks like real intimacy through Liz inviting Nathan into her personal healing ritual, with Nathan overcoming his own fears to join her there. No bossy Billy around to break them up or say stupid things about her post-baby belly.
I watched several YouTube videos to follow this up: The Lincoln Theater Q&A. A great interview with IndieWire. An insufferable know-it-all from Megyn Kelly’s network who, now that I know who she works for, I won’t link. Dr. Ramani, expert on narcissism, who reported getting so disoriented during the film that it physically gave her vertigo. Jessie Gender After Dark with a lot of relatable feelings. Legal Eagle on how it felt like a deposition, but a really interesting one. The best was the last: MovieBob had the exact nerdy insight I was looking for that helped me make the most sense of what I had just seen.
I don’t mean to be reductive, but I think the documentary shows you a small part of how the Theranos sausage got made. Then it showed you a couple of crazy weirdos who fell in love despite all that.
Liz told Nathan that the love she has for Billy is how she finally understood that love is god and vice versa. As much as I hate Billy, I get it. Her life was over, then almost miraculously, love found her – even if it comes from and back to someone as icky as Billy. To his credit, he has me calling her Liz, and it really is kind of heroic how important it is to him to try to show the world the person he loves through his eyes. The problem with that is that he’s in love with a self-delusion embodied by a skinny white woman – one he doesn’t seem to respect all that much. Let this wild documentary of their oddball behavior be the monument of love they want to leave each other.
Meanwhile, you can see everything else – as in, everything you’d want to see in someone who’s seducing you – in Olivia Wilde’s The Invite.
What a ride. Of course it was hard to watch in parts, but a lot of later scenes make it worthwhile. This is the wisdom of Ester Perel brought to the screen. The character Penelope Cruz plays sounds a lot like the famous therapist, if she were also a libertine sexologist.
There are laugh out loud moments, mostly revolving around Seth Rogen. It was fun watching him work with Penelope Cruz, especially knowing they’re each happily married to other people but filming honest portrayals of seduction in this story.
Wilde, who also directed, played a character I found insufferable but did it with enough dedication to make her believable. I didn’t want to empathize with that character but I was forced to by logic. She had valid reasons for making the choices she did, whether I disagreed with her or not.
The story plays like a livelier, funnier version of any episode of Where Should We Begin?, Ester Perel’s podcast. The fictional men were less frustrating than the real ones who make it to the therapy sessions. Ed Norton was an endearing foil to Seth Rogen’s grumpy antihero. Olivia Wilde held that feminine shadow-self with warmth and humor.
This is a real woman who got wrung out by her last project and the personal issues woven through it. Watching this movie is witnessing resilience. The whole thing is a gift. I felt like Rogen was sincerely thanking her (and Cruz) in that scene where he’s initiating foreplay with Penelope’s character.
