a review of

edit: the longer i think about this the more i despise it. it's one of the most manipulative and dishonest pieces of "art" ever made. nathan fielder is as complicit as elizabeth, or billy, or the a twenty four execs he tries to distance himself from. the fact that people don't understand this is deeply disturbing. reckless to release this footage at all let alone edited to be purposefully misleading. a disservice to humanity and anyone who's ever been harmed by a narcissist. original: i am not necessarily upset that i went to see this...it is interesting to *try to* plug into the zeitgeist and *try to* understand what all the white normie libs are getting excited about these days. i didn't get anything at all positive out of the experience, however, and left with a solidly degraded opinion of nathan fielder. this film is just so full of convoluted white fuckery and bullshit (and it's not just coming from the subjects of the film). i also have serious concerns about the motives, methods, and integrity of the filmmakers and producers. in addition, it really, really seems like fielder makes no attempt to illuminate or examine anything real and instead abuses his power as narrator to purposefully occlude the truth. first half: moderately interesting. essentially narcissist 4 narcissist couple seek unicorn for both business (personal monetary enrichment) and pleasure purposes (bonus points if unicorn is also a narcissist). just freakishly framed way too close ups in four three and shots of nathan being a fucking creep. strange, strange choices. i didn't need to see like thirty minutes of nathan fielder's vacant stare (or holmes' for that matter). i will say that like forty percent of the interviews in the first half display compelling interviewing tactics that did strike me as rooted in integrity. the rest are simply laying the groundwork for the second half of the film where fielder maybe develops a crush on elizabeth, loses the plot, and begs us to consider what if she is in fact the first billionaire who has literally personally driven people to suicide but is actually a victim. the first half at least is not as actively manipulative and contrived...simply uninteresting. second half: dear fucking lord. i despise the second half of this film. i despise fielder's tactics. i despise his libbed out morality and viewpoint. i despise the reenactments. elizabeth spends the first half of the film literally crying and talking about how much she hates seyfried's prior portrayal of her (rightfully so...it appears to be horrific). nathan then goes out and gets amanda to do more reenactments...essentially perpetrating the same harm upon her once again. the reenactments, while not even the most manipulative aspect of the filmmaking, are in my opinion an atrocious editorial vehicle. they are presented as fact (and intended to show stuff he was explicitly asked not to record, which like...wtf man). however, we are asked to take nathan at his word about what he's portraying. i honestly think this would have had more integrity if he just non-consensually recorded the off the record stuff and showed it. i don't trust that man as far as i can throw him and his narrative voice doesn't belong anywhere near a "documentary" in my opinion (i would also argue this is not a documentary...not even close). there's also the issue that a twenty four, before filming even started, agreed to to pay elizabeth's husband for their family's participation. this is so laughably inappropriate, and we are only told about this after sitting through two hours of fielder telling us how much integrity he is bringing to this film. this guy is a fraud. at the end of the day this came across to me as a whole bunch of purposefully obtuse contrived quandaries about what if holmes is actually a victim and a bunch of repetitive gotcha moments. ladies and gentlemen...it's not hard to weave a tangled web of bullshit, lies, and manipulation and masquerade it as thought provoking. it's really not hard. i was getting flashbacks to watching "the oath" by laura poitras, a similarly flawed documentary lacking integrity in similar ways. in that documentary, poitras' deceptive and manipulative tactics at least earn her truly astounding footage. i have watched only one single other documentary about elizabeth holmes and in the three hour runtime of this film learned basically nothing about her. how the fuuuuck do you do that nathan? i get it. a lot of normies are still impressed by narratives about how evil and corrupt the ruling class is. buuut, how anyone can live in this fucked up society and not already have an embodied understanding of that...i have no clue. it's not interesting. it's like a documentary about water being wet. it's also not interesting to make a whole "documentary" pointing out that humans are incapable of being unbiased and that there's no objective truth. that concept has been run ragged. just go watch "f for fake" instead please, and stop mashing the five star button on this white mediocrity. finally, please for the love of god stop with the elizabeth holmes is autistic discourse.