Spoiler alert! We're discussing the themes and structure of the Elizabeth Holmes documentary "You Can See Everything" and touching on a surprising aspect of its second half, so turn away if you want to go in completely cold.
Nathan Fielder's entire career has led him to Elizabeth Holmes.
Fielder's flavor of cringe comedy has long had a cult appeal, but he's now at the center of one of 2026's biggest movie phenomena. The hit documentary "You Can See Everything," which looks to be a major player in the Oscar race, sees Fielder move in with the Theranos founder to chronicle her final days before going to prison, and things unravel from there over three jaw-dropping hours.
For some, "You Can See Everything" is their introduction to Fielder. But what
newcomers won't fully appreciate is the way the movie didn't come out of nowhere; it's the natural culmination of Fielder's surreal comedy journey.
Who is Nathan Fielder? Meet the 'You Can See Everything' star
Fielder, 43, is originally from Vancouver, and he got his break on the Canadian comedy series "This Hour Has 22 Minutes." In the show's recurring "Nathan on Your Side" segment, Fielder used his own name, but was very much playing a character as a hilariously uncharismatic reporter. His segments were like a mix between "Borat" and "The Daily Show": Fielder interviewed real people for news reports and drew laughs by making things awkward with odd questions and his deadpan way of speaking.
But most of Fielder's American fans were introduced to him through his Comedy Central series "Nathan for You," which premiered in 2013. Modeled after shows like "Kitchen Nightmares," each episode saw Fielder go to real businesses to pitch their owners on absurd methods for improving sales, which he would then put into practice.
Fielder again played a character who is an exaggerated version of himself, and much of the humor stemmed from watching his clumsy interactions with people, who don't realize he isn't being genuine and aren't sure how to react to his outrageous ideas and lack of social skills.
But beyond cringe comedy, the show was a commentary on the way American consumers always have to be wary of being deceived and manipulated by companies that care only about their bottom line. After all, Fielder's plans were typically rooted in exploiting legal loopholes, engaging in misleading marketing, or otherwise walking right up to the line of outright scamming customers.
Nathan Fielder made headlines with 2014 Dumb Starbucks stunt
In one episode, Fielder had a gas station advertise a low price to lure in drivers, who then learned this price is only available if they claim a rebate by climbing to the top of a mountain. In another, Fielder had a pizza place promise eight-minute delivery or customers would get a free pizza. The catch? The "free pizza" is only an inch big.
Because Fielder was interacting with real people, his shenanigans occasionally made real news, most famously in a 2014 episode where he renamed a coffee shop Dumb Starbucks. The idea was that the store would use Starbucks' logo so customers would come in thinking it was a Starbucks, not noticing the word "dumb" on the sign. Fielder argued this was legal under parody law because the store was making fun of Starbucks. The stunt drew widespread news coverage, with the media being initially unaware that Fielder was behind it.
Throughout the show, Fielder's character is depicted as someone who has no problem deceiving others as part of his schemes, including an episode where he convinces a man to go on several local news stations to tell a fake story about his life to help promote a moving company. The deception extended off the show: Fielder would seemingly still be in character to some degree in interviews and late-night appearances.
While out in the field, Fielder frequently encountered eccentric characters who became fan favorites, including a gas station owner who confused Fielder by talking about drinking his grandson's urine. This comes up in "You Can See Everything," which reveals this is the only scene from Fielder's body of work that Holmes has watched.
After "Nathan For You" ended in 2017, he followed it up in 2022 with the HBO series "The Rehearsal." The new show again involved Fielder awkwardly interacting with real people. But this time, the goal was helping people rehearse for situations in their daily lives using hilariously elaborate recreations. In the first episode, Fielder helped a man prepare to confess to a friend by hiring an actress to play the friend and building a reconstruction of the bar where the interaction would take place. This became a major part of "You Can See Everything," which leans heavily into re-enactments and hiring actors to play real people.
Miscommunication was a theme in Season 2 of "The Rehearsal," in which Fielder examined poor communication between airplane pilots. That also continues into "You Can See Everything," where Fielder parses the words Holmes used to describe Theranos' technology to question if she was misunderstood or intentionally dishonest.
Fielder has also done some scripted work: In 2023, he starred opposite Emma Stone in Showtime's "The Curse," a surreal dark comedy about a married couple from a fictional HGTV show.
Nathan Fielder meets his match in Elizabeth Holmes documentary
When Fielder was revealed to have made a movie with Holmes, longtime fans flipped out because it seemed like the project his entire career had been building up to.
Here was a guy who played an exaggerated version of himself, misleading people to help businesses get ahead on "Nathan for You." Now, he would come face-to-face with a person who was infamously convicted of misleading investors. Fielder has often forced others to question if he's being genuine and has carried out schemes built off dishonesty, albeit to get a laugh and without any real harm. But would the man who spent a career deceiving others for comedy be able to tell whether someone is deceiving him?
Based on what Fielder has said, the answer seems to be no. At New York Film Festival, he noted, "I am still struggling, to this day, to understand what I went through here."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How Nathan Fielder's cringe-comedy career led him to Elizabeth Holmes
