A-List Star’s Top Secret Role Should Make Oscar History

A24 From the moment You Can See Everything appeared out of nowhere at the Telluride Film Festival, it’s been the only thing everyone in the movie world has wanted to talk about.

The three-hour documentary directed by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder is a no-holds-barred, intimate look at the lives of Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans, as they spend 34 days together before Holmes is sent to prison for an 11-year sentence for “defrauding investors in Theranos, Inc. of hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to the U.S.

Attorney’s Office.

The reaction out of Telluride was nothing short of fanatic, and a subsequent screening at the New York Film Festival generated astonishing buzz.

So much so that one big question emerged from these early screenings: Could You Can See Everything be the first-ever documentary to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars? Now that the film is in theaters—with all its biggest secrets and twists available to the public—there’s an even bigger question.

And if you don’t want the movie’s biggest surprise spoiled before you see it, stop reading here. [ WARNING : Spoilers for You Can See Everything below.] Could this be the first documentary with an Oscar-nominated performance? Let’s explain.

The film’s second half takes place two years after Holmes enters federal prison and finds Fielder without access to his film’s central figure.

How can you tell a story about a person who can no longer appear on screen? Well, this is Nathan Fielder, so you know something crazy is about to happen.

And it does.

Fielder recruits someone who knows a little something about pretending to be Elizabeth Holmes: actress Amanda Seyfried, who won an Emmy portraying her in Hulu’s The Dropout .

Things get weirder—and even more watchable—from here.

Seyfried joins the film to reenact moments Fielder shared with Holmes that weren’t on camera.

And yet, it’s so much more than that.

Seyfried becomes deeply invested not only in Fielder and Oppenheim’s film, but in Holmes’ life.