Thanks again. I’ll look forward to seeing it whenever it hits streaming.
I wish we all lived in the same area, I’d go rewatch it and discuss it some more.
I often wonder what they make of their daughter. You have to love your kid unconditionally, but how do you respond to a crime like that? Do they think she’s a victim? Really, deep down?
Honestly based on the culture they lived in and stories in Bad Blood, they all seem like terrible people. At least, Chris (the Dad) does some dick things to other people according to the book. And their friends are awful.
You make a really good point. I didn’t think there was sexual tension. But I thought there was kind of an emotional tension (which I may also have been imagining.) I particularly felt the way the film was setting up (or Billy was setting up) Fielder to be a sort of rival. And that does happen a lot in romances. But in this case it felt platonic to me.
Look, I’m a sucker for a White Knight. So that play worked.
I can’t help but remember when I was getting closer to a group of friends in high school. There was this one guy, Dave. And I, a young woman of fifteen, said to one of our mutual closest friends, “I don’t know, I just feel a lot of sexual tension between me and Dave.”
Our friend laughed so hard.
Dave is, of course, gay.
To this day, they will never let me live it down.
Inna and I saw it last weekend and we still bring it up from time to time, a comparative rarity for us. I enjoyed the first half of the film more than the second half, Inna was the opposite.
That uncomfortably intimate scene between Nathan and Liz? Liz is (either through nature or corporate training) almost physically incapable of breaking eye contact first. And Nathan is just testing her to see how awkward things need to get before she does.
Very interesting movie. I’ve never been able to get through an entire episode of either of Nathan’s shows, but this was a role he was born to play. So much manipulation going on so many different levels. At the very end I was left wondering if the look Amanda gave Nathan was scripted or not.
Well, it wasn’t the Rocky Horror picture show. 
There was sometimes a ripple of reaction from the audience.
I thought it was okay. I was really bored the whole first half of the movie. I looked at my watch at least 5 times. It wasn’t until the second half that i found it interesting. And i did find that part engaging, but not, “i want more” engaging like some of you describe. It was certainly an interestingly structured movie. But… I’m not much of a movie goer. When i go to a movie, I’m not wondering “why did the artist used this brush style on the trees”, I’m just looking for a pretty picture. (Or for a movie, a fun story.) I’m probably not the right audience for this movie. (I actually do engage that way sometimes with paintings. Maybe I’m more into paintings than movies.)
When we walked out, my husband commented, “i think she was in on it with him”. (He meant that he thought Holmes had collaborated with Billy to negotiate the financial terms.) I said that people i talked with online said the movie was really about whether you can believe documentaries, and whether you can trust Fielder, and the relationship between the artist and his subject, and he replied, “huh”. I don’t think i would have seen that, either, without y’all.
Not just you. Although i read it as emotional tension and wasn’t expecting a kiss. But yes, those moments felt very intimate.
The thing that surprised me the most is how physically attractive Billy is. It was clear why Holmes was the face of the company when she was partnered with Sunny Balwani. Because she’s the kind of person that other people want to please because of her appearance and aspect. And he’s not. He just looks like an ordinary guy. But Billy is. Billy is hot. I wonder what he needs her for.
The questions I was left with after the film were more mundane than the ones you all are intrigued by. I want to know why Fielder wrote all over his wrist before seeing Holmes in prison, and what he wrote. And i want to understand why Billy agreed not to collect part of the profits of the movie. Oh, and i want to know why they don’t have conjugal visits. Isn’t that normal in a prison? That just seems weird.
And of course there’s the big question, why on earth did they invite a team of people to film them? Surely they were hoping to come out looking good. But… Did they think that was going to work? Why didn’t they demand some kind of artistic control?
I guess i do have one meta question. Did Fielder go into this planning to hire an actress who had previously portrayed Holmes? Or did that idea come to him later?
Maybe i would have liked the movie more if I’d known more about Fielder and the actress. I wasn’t familiar with either of them, and was less invested in learning about them. I knew a lot about Holmes, and was more interested in what i might learn about her. I guess i did learn that she’s in an abusive relationship. I still think she’s an extremely talented liar.
Visitors can only bring a single credit card into a US Federal prison (no paper) and I assume he wrote down the questions he wanted to ask on his arm. The deal was a bad look for Billy’s credibility at a time he is trying to raise serious venture capital for his company. He also had no way of knowing the film would be a box office bonanza. No US Federal prisons allow conjugal visits.
Thanks Elmer
Huh.
I volunteered in a state prison for a while, and it had much stricter rules than that one. I was only allowed to bring in the clothes i was wearing, which had to be approved, plus a visitor pass they gave me and the locker key that allowed me to retrieve my other stuff on the way out. No credit cards. No way to give snacks to prisoners. I also wasn’t allowed to touch the prisoners. I messed up the first time i went by shaking someone’s hand. Maybe friends were allowed to touch the prisoners, they had slightly different rules. But it did allow conjugal visits, in a building that looked like it might also serve as a chapel.
The rules about clothing i could wear were fairly strict. No denim or sweatshirt material, because that’s what the prisoners wore. No hats or hoods, but if the weather was especially bad the warden could allow it. No jewelry except a wedding band and/or a small religious symbol. No attached medical devices without prior written approval. But tattoos were allowed, so i suppose
Makes sense. But i still felt like that was a loose end. We don’t see a reenactment of any questions he’d have to write down to remember to ask. (I was tutoring statistics, and usually, if i emailed the right person, he’d print some stuff i sent him. But that didn’t always work, and I had to be prepared to basically teach a class without notes.)
The whole movie is a bad look for Billy. I remain surprised they participated in it. I assume they expected to charm the interviewers. But… Yeah, i suppose they didn’t expect it to make much money. I suppose they made it clear they would discuss the financial deal within the movie.
I was left with the weird impression that Elizabeth Holmes wanted to sell the idea that it was a brilliant innovation to invent a box that you could put a variety of blood tests in. Does she understand that you can put a variety of blood tests into a shoebox? Does she think a random movie got is too dumb to understand that?
And the whole “who’s on first” episode was weird on several levels. Starting with both the characters saying they’d never heard of it. Now i have to ask my younger friends if they know it.
To other people wondering if they should see the movie: everyone is talking about it. It came up at bridge, for instance. I am happy to be able to participate in that conversation. I did enjoy the second half, which goes in a lot of unexpected directions. And you need the first half for the second half to exist.
It’s probably better if you were already familiar with Fielder and the actress. But its entertaining. And it’s probably better without spoilers, although if you’re reading this thread, it’s too late for that.
I would really love to know how they picked A24 to begin with, without actually realizing that A24 is famous-ish for generating big box office for genres (like horror or documentary) that typically don’t. They are marketing geniuses.
As for why they participated, I assumed it was in aid of a pardon or commutation (they filed for one later, in 2025), which a deluded Charlie Kirk-loving finance bro might actually believe was possible. [actually, strike that: in this era, it actually is possible]
One thing to bear in mind is that the filming was in 2023, and as of early September 2026 the film was not only unreleased, but unknown outside the circle of people who produced it…it was a big surprise premier at the Telluride Film Festival. If they really thought the movie would benefit them, I can see giving up the (low expected) profit to encourage getting it out there. In fact, it’s possible Fielder or A24 said this to him.
Finally, thanks for attending and reporting back!
ETA: I meant to mention, she’s currently scheduled to move to a halfway house in August of next year, and had some months shaved off her sentence…currently early 2030 is the expected release date.
Elizabeth Holmes Set to Leave Prison Years Early After Judge Cuts Theranos Sentence | Law Commentary
I’d been thinking we might see her again soon. She wasn’t convicted of any of the really nasty charges (like damaging the health of people who relied on her magic box.)
Oh holy cow, I thought I recognized the guy who played Billy in the reenactments: it’s Christopher Abbott, who played her husband in The Testament of Ann Lee, which would have filmed a bit before those reenactments I think? Or maybe simultaneously?
I had a lot of the same questions you did. I mean there are the meta questions but also just a lot of really logistical ones.
But I truly don’t understand why either Holmes or Billy thought this would turn out well for them. Holmes told Fielder she’d never seen his work, but she also told him he’d make a good father, which suggests she might know about the themes in The Rehearsal, in which Nathan explores his own feelings about becoming a Dad.
So either a) she hired a guy she knew was notorious for deceiving his audience and lied to him for some reason or b) she hired someone with no idea who was doing the film.
Both of those seem incredibly stupid.
Though the more I read from Bad Blood the less I am convinced she is as intelligent as people said. She didn’t understand anything about her product and did so many things that would obviously result in disaster. I can’t describe the level of incompetence on display there.
I think it’s a lack of intellectual curiosity more than a lack of intelligence. Whereas we see Billy constantly trying to learn stuff (at 2x speed) but he doesn’t seem very bright.
I know he’s aesthetically a good-looking guy, in an abstract sort of way, but he’s such a moron I don’t find him attractive at all.
I mean, i feel that way about her, too. But i find myself looking at them when they are in screen, in a way i wasn’t drawn to either of the actors who played their parts.
And to get into the artist’s brush-strokes, i think that’s why we see him in the shower and in the gym, to highlight that about him. Not that either scene was even a little erotic, but they highlight his physicality.
In the end, the part I found most fascinating was them trying to do it all over again, the steps they took, and the sheer amount of time spent on their latest business (which I took to calling the “Great Distraction” during the movie).
My favorite scene re: the above was when, three days before going to prison, Elizabeth and Billy are talking about some minor point in the Great Distraction in front of her dumbfounded parents, who, I’m sure, were more interested in talking about such minor things as “what’s happening with the kid?”, “how do we replace her income?” and other items of logistical, “you’re going to jail for a decade - 3 days from now!”, measures.
Absolutely cracked me up. And I’m sure Elizabeth is using the Great Distraction to psychologically manage her way through prison, lol.
Of course the shower scene also points out: this is the kind of guy who says, “go ahead and film me naked”. But i don’t know what to make of that.