He invited the crew to film him in both places because he wanted to show off (which is also why he made sure they filmed him watching videos at 2x). I think Fielder and Oppenheim included it not to say “look how hot this guy is,” but to say “look what a raging narcissist this guy is.”
I think because he found a rival in Fielder. As one article put it: “This is a literal dick-measuring contest.”
I think there are elements of both. We know that he’s hot, and also, that he knows he’s hot and is in the habit of using that strategically.
I genuinely think it gets included just because “how can we not include THAT?”
Funny but also sad as you could see the parents squeezing each other’s hands nervously while Holmes talked about Theranos 2.0. I don’t know what her parents are like but I kind of feel for them. I mean what do you do when that’s your kid?
Gift link to NYT article about the movie, by the author of the “character i created” article.
We saw it yesterday, at a First Monday of the Month Special. The theater was sold out, full of seniors.
My summation: I didn’t think it was very good. As for Holmes, she’s twisted. And, so is he (Billy Evans; not Nathan Fielder, although Nathan is worth a brief side discussion. This is the first time I’ve seen either of them). They deserve each other.
I haven’t read this thread. I want to jot down my thoughts unfiltered by the Dopers here. Afterwards I’ll review the thread. I’m guessing that much if not all of what I’ll say has already been discussed upthread. Apologies for that.
Immediately after the movie we walked next door to a quiet bar and sat down with a glass of wine to discuss. My wife and her parents were with me. She (EH, I won’t call her Liz and I’m too lazy to type out her name) has a twisted sense of reality and morality.
It’s unfortunate for the rest of us that they’ve already procreated. Their truly twisted DNA (yeah, a pun) will continue to propagate through this world at least for another generation.
About her twisted sense of reality, it is truly bizarre how some people communicate, and how they can receive and process the same information that you do, but when they analyze or discuss it, their assessment is so far from reality that you just have ask yourself, Did they hear the same thing that I did? I’ve worked with a few people like that in my career, and when it happens you just want to shake your head. It’s baffling and truly bizarre. EH is in that category. Some Twilight Zone stuff.
EH is clearly one who defers to her partner, whether it’s Sunny or Billy. The shows and podcasts I’ve seen didn’t really expose her dynamics with Sunny, but from this documentary some of her relationship with Billy is revealed and I draw some parallels to her relationship with Sunny. EH defers so often. It’s somewhat surprising. And it’s also disappointing. I was hopeful that she’d be another strong leader-type of person, but really, she’s weak. Additionally, she is still very much like a child. Sure, a child who once was worth $9B, but a child nonetheless. Quite immature too. Surprisingly so, for one who once led a (briefly) major company and rubbed elbows with some major leaders.
About her twisted sense of morality, EH emphasizes that she’s never told a lie in her life, and yet when Billy posts to social media on her behalf, as being ‘her’, she does not consider at least some of his posts even remotely a lie. She does not mention Theranos’s wrong test results for syphilis (IIRC that’s the specific test), when it returned a negative result for a person who really was positive, as being a problem. And that false lab result is also not just a problem but it’s also a lie, a very vicious lie.
Billy is a narcissist asshole. His unveiled threats towards Nathan and Amanda, about how if he doesn’t like anyone’s work then he’ll seek vengeance, and he’s good at it, he knows people with special skills and abilities, was clearly a shot across the bow towards them. And there was absolutely no value in the nudity scene towards the overall theme of the documentary, other than the audience draws the conclusion that Billy insisted it stays in the final cut because he wants people to see his cock. That was a waste of 10 seconds, except that it does emphasize his narcissism. So maybe that’s why it was in the film.
Going in I knew it was nearly 3 hours long. While viewing it I must’ve looked at my watch 3-4x. The pacing of the documentary was a little slow for me.
As for Nathan, I don’t know him much but I think he was really taken in by EH. Almost attracted to her, even. To me he lost his objectivity early on. By the time he was saying goodbye to EH when she was headed off to jail (okay, ‘Prison Camp’), in that scene where the two of them just stood there looking at each other for an awkwardly long time, it seemed to me like he almost wanted to kiss her goodbye. On the lips. A deep, passionate French kiss. Awkward.
As for the technology, okay the chemical assay attempts by Theranos we know are impossible to achieve (who is that female Stanford chemist/biologist who advised EH early on in her Theranos venture and told her that what she’s trying to do is not possible with such a small quantity of blood?), but I’m cautiously hopeful that the Theranos approach and even the approach of Haemanthus might one day be possible (I don’t think that company name was mentioned in the film).
Overall I felt like they were trying to manipulate me. At many times by EH, and also by Billy, and then at times also by Nathan. They want sympathy for EH. She’s getting none from me. This was intended to be a documentary but it was a manipulation piece.
So, yeah, EH is twisted. And so is Billy. They deserve each other.
You do what every other parent should do: for the first 12 years of your child’s life you do your best to raise them well, and then from 12 to 18 you start backing off, you pick your battles and gradually let them learn from their own decisions. After 18 you advise infrequently. They already are who they’ll be. But I do feel sad for them.
Okay. This might be why it was in there.
Make sense, though, doesn’t it? I mean, you have some experience in an area, so why not leverage off of that?
Hmmm, I don’t think he’s all that attractive. I guess he’s not my type. Robert Redford is more my type.
Before watching the film I (a) did not read this thread and (b) did read the film’s synopsis on wiki. I’m glad I did because the reenactments were quickly self evident. If I hadn’t read the synopsis I likely would’ve been a little lost at first. It would’ve taken me a little time to catch up.
Which reminds me. Amanda Seyfried’s part in the film was at times quite annoying. I mean, you’re an actor for criminy sakes! What gives you any documentary value to weigh in on this topic? Other than you’re just another person with an opinion. It’s not like you’re an expert in industry ethics or in startups (or, wait, is she? I don’t think she is). Okay, you may have studied EH some in order to portray her, but still that’s to portray her and not to assess her psyche or business acumen. Yeah, that bothered me some.
That might contribute to why I didn’t think it was very good.
Finally saw it, partly because my friend really wanted to see it with me and partly because of FOMO. I enjoyed it in a “look at this car crash” kind of way, which doesn’t make me feel great about myself. The cinematography and score were great, and helped me watch what were basically three creeps sitting around trying to manipulate each other. Elizabeth Holmes is guilty as sin. She told blatant lies, none of which were discussed in the movie. Nathan Fielder is human garbage, a manipulative con artist. They all deserve each other. I have a lot of questions about everyone’s motive, especially Amanda Seyfried, who seems like the only decent person in this movie. Like I said, I had a decent time, but for all the people telling me it explores some deep questions about truth and our relationship with it, pull the other one, its got bells on it. It doesn’t explore things, it obfuscates them.
ETA: Thanks for the NYT article, @puzzlegal. It confirms my suspicions about Fielder.
That’s not really a criticism, the film literally says this. That’s kinda the point. The whole bit at the end when Fielder is telling Amanda what Liz said in prison and Amanda says maybe Fielder is misremembering or wants to show Liz in a better light than she really was and he literally rewrites the script. We are supposed to question everything.
I heard an incredibly negative discussion of the film on a minor NPR show yesterday. It was two people complaining about it, not always consistently, but the thing they said that resonated the most with me is, “this film gives her a new platform”. Yeah. She doesn’t deserve that. She deserves obscurity at best.
Did he do something or do you just not like his TV show? I have only seen two episodes of “The Rehearsal”, so I can see why it wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but that’s quite a strong response if you just aren’t a fan. Is this just like the other poster who is big mad because he said something about planes they disagreed with? The NY Times link is locked unless you login so I can’t read whatever was said there.
I think it’s worth pointing out (for others here as well) that Amy Chozick closes the article by saying:
I don’t know what Ms. Holmes told Mr. Fielder that didn’t make the cut, but the tone of their conversations on camera is different from my memory of how she and I interacted. With me, our tasks felt very much mother-to-mother. After Theranos imploded, Ms. Holmes told me that she finally felt free: “I began my life again.” I remember thinking that she sounded a lot like someone who had finally broken out of a cult and been deprogrammed.
But then I remembered that Ms. Holmes had been running the cult. It was her vortex all along, and thanks to Mr. Fielder and Mr. Oppenheim, we all get to experience it.
Bolding mine. She seems a bit unimpressed with Fielder’s approach to her, and takes issue with his framing of “the quote” in the movie (valid criticisms, IMHO). But the top comment to the article is her saying:
I’ll be honest, I really thought about not writing this column. My inner voice was screaming “ABORT! ABORT!” [A reference to the column]. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and appreciated the conversation it started about truth and deception… and it’s just fun when we’re all talking about something that isn’t politics.
Bolding mine again. So despite her issues with it, I think she saw something in it that mirrored her own experiences.
Finally saw the film. I felt like I had to since I saw the original documentary “The Inventor: Out for Blood” at Sundance, before HBO bought it.
Holmes comes across like she’s a doe-eyed innocent, and her confusion over communication…and supported by her husband that her “brain is just wired differently”. Now, she may be slightly on the spectrum, but she’s very intelligent. Her parsing of the definition of “can” is similar to Clinton’s definition of “is”.
It was way drawn out, and I’m frustrated with Fielder that he left out or whiffed on two important aspects that he should have pushed Holmes on:
- even if she held to her definition of “can”, is she able to understand or perceive that others (investors, customers, journalists, etc.) may have misinterpreted her? She never conveyed that understanding. She just repeatedly claimed her innocence that she never said what people believe she meant.
- She clearly understands that any money “she” would have made on the film would have been garnished, taken, etc. for restitution. She said so towards the end of the film. So she’s apparently okay attempting to let her husband to funnel off money to “his separate acount”. Is that why she didn’t participate in the money conversations, so that she had deniability and the funds could be argued as his and not hers? That’s not an innocent look. Which is why I believe they ultimately retracted.
What ever money, if any, that Theranos 2.0 (Haemanthus) makes, the court pierces whatever veil they are attempting to put in place and recovers for the original Theranos investors.
Image recovery fail!
I’ll also point out for some of the newcomers here, that in an interviewed filmed after one of the premiers, Fielder says that he wasn’t sure if he was interested in the project (Holmes and Evans approached A24, presumably for a vanity documentary with a “hip” production company) because the story had already been told so many times in many different formats. Because of this, they negotiated an exit clause with A24 – if there wasn’t anything new to say, they could bail and bury the footage.
But when they got there and started filming, they realized that among the production crew there were multiple interpretations of every interaction. They figured, if we can’t figure out what’s happening, then maybe there’s something worth releasing.
Hence, the film focuses on that ambiguity rather than rehashing the story for the umpteenth time.
If you watch his other stuff, this guy plays fast and loose with what’s real and what’s not, very intentionally. As I stated upthread I think there’s a core of emotional authenticity in everything he does, at least in The Rehearsal. I didn’t get the impression he was attracted to her but that he was somewhat drawn in, but not in a way that is intended to make you sympathetic toward Holmes, but in a way that shows how good she is at this manipulation. I doubted myself watching the film, and that’s the trick. I didn’t know much about her crimes beforehand but now that I’ve learned I think I’d have experienced the movie differently.
It’s nice to get an alternative perspective to pure adulation, even though that’s what I feel. I just seem to really connect with Fielder’s work. When I watch The Rehearsal, I feel seen. He’s obviously just as uncomfortable as the other people in his stories and he confronts that discomfort over and over again. So I guess my opinion about what’s true and what’s false is I believe Fielder’s conflict and discomfort is real. And I share that discomfort on so many levels, particularly in my own social interactions. I hope I don’t come off that awkward! But the feelings are real.
I think you’re referring to me here and I’d like to clarify:
It’s not that Fielder said something I didn’t like. He outright lied and misrepresented how airline pilots are trained and work. I’m a professional pilot and it was incredibly irresponsible of him to bring this sort of fear to the flying public.
Let me say this just one more time: Fielder is a liar or a fool (perhaps both). I don’t see how his opinion about anything can be trusted.
They are not actually married for that very reason.
Based on the discussion here, I’m confident that this nearly three-hour-long documentary about 3 very unlikeable people is one I can easily skip 
I don’t have an opinion as to whether Fielder was attracted to her, because he’s an actor, and he chose the footage, and i don’t believe what i see of their relationship. But i do think the show leaves a sympathetic impression of Holmes. It shows her cuddling her baby. It shows her asserting her innocence with apparent conviction. It shows her being mistreated by her partner. It says she wasn’t convicted of defrauding patients. It never touches on how her lies about her company hurt people, and almost certainly killed people.
Both Holmes and Fielder are apparently quite likable in person. 