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If this is not Culture War tell me, but I'm flabbergasted, I have to share that with you all.
So it seems there is a documentary out about Elizabeth Holmes. I had no idea until I stumbled across this trailer, and at first I thought it was a movie. Because it looks like a movie. And I thought this was two actors and one, at least, of them was going to turn out to be a serial killer.
No, it would seem this is indeed the one, the only, the real genuine pure-quill Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos infamy herself. And all I can say is holy crap.
Because she looks nuts. She looks like "I am about to slip some gelsemine into your tea and then sit by your bedside mopping your brow and cooing reassuringly as you slowly succumb to its effects, in the best traditions of the Golden Age of British murder".
It seems to be shot like a film, there has to be a hefty dose of acting going on because the guy playing? being? the director/narrator of the documentary looks like he is acting the part of "guy reacting to something he doesn't trust" with the hanging open mouth and sucking his tongue etc. reaction. But it seems like the filming really was that weird.
Gosh amighty. And there's a small child, a real small child and not "the script needs a baby" child actor, in this and everything. That really makes me concerned, because I would not leave that woman in charge of a goldfish.
The woman was either crazy as a loon or drugged out to the orbit of Pluto, or both. Because that kind of "pop your eyes wide open until the balls nearly fall out and stare unblinkingly and hold that stare for minutes" kind of behaviour, that is not normal.
How the hell did she get money from the supposedly rich and canny, the kind of hard-nosed business people whose job it was to sniff out frauds and schemers, who made tons of money by making the right decisions on investments and trades? Did the crazy only come out later?
Two things:
Nathan Fielder is involved with this. This immediately makes it questionable how much of this is a documentary vs. a movie and what genre it is, also how much Holmes is involved in the "joke." If you don't know who Nathan is I really recommend looking into it, a few YouTubers have multi hour long videos that make you question reality. The guy is doing some really interesting performance art and/or is a wild person.
Holmes was always part of the take adjacent delusion complex. The technology was very obviously physically impossible to anyone with a science background, so like many scams you immediately filtered off anybody with any sense, so everyone involved was an idiot or profoundly desperate to find a blond female tech savant.
The trailer is only a few minutes long, and of course the way it's shot and scored and presented makes it look like a movie. So the impressions we are/I am getting are those the film makers want us to get.
But seemingly they really did invite in this crew:
So this really is Holmes doing her utmost best to be appealing and charming and "I'm being real, I'm being honest, I'm not hiding anything" and instead looking completely uncanny. Why did she and her partner do this? Why did they think it a good idea? Clearly when she was shopping around for someone to make a film or piece about her, the idea was to create propaganda (if possible) about her being a pure-hearted blossom who only had the best of sincere intentions and it all somehow went sideways. But this? Invite them in before she goes to jail, then they keep hanging around for three years, and out comes the most uncanny of valleys in the shape of the trailer?
I genuinely thought this was a docudrama with an actress playing her, brilliantly conveying how unhinged she was, but with a lot of artistic licence going on. Nope, this is the real lady showing us how unhinged she is.
I find this hard to believe. Both seasons of The Rehearsal we're about him inserting himself into the story he's documenting. I think it's a big part of what makes his art so good; blurring the like between documentarian and documentee (?) is the point.
That said, those chilling shots of Holmes looking like a sociopath... I think the effect is really increased by the magic of filmmaking. Close-ups, cuts between faces that potentially extend the timing of awkward silences.. the music in the background. All documentaries should be taken with a hefty serving of salt.
This is why I generally hate all but the most lighthearted and inconsequential of documentaries. Half the information of a book/long article, but chock full of every emotional manipulation trick in Hollywood's arsenal. It's like eating a survival ration where half the calories were replaced with cigarettes.
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