Elizabeth Holmes Movie’s 20 Best Moments

The most jaw-dropping moment of the documentary — and the most heavily guarded — has to be Seyfried joining the film as herself and also playing Holmes. About halfway through the doc, Fielder recruits Seyfried to get her take on his odd interactions with Holmes, since she won an Emmy for playing the Theranos founder on Hulu’s “The Dropout.” Seyfried’s role in the movie soon snowballs into her getting back into character and re-enacting real conversations that Fielder had with Holmes. Her participation also serves as a way for the actress to mentally unpack and reckon with playing Holmes on TV, which caused many people to think “The Dropout” was more factual than it actually was.

In another surprise celebrity moment, “East of Eden” and “X-Men” star Abbott plays Evans alongside Seyfried as Holmes. The two actors re-create a meeting that Fielder, Oppenheim and their A24 team had with the real Holmes and Evans before filming began. Abbott then returns later in the doc as they re-enact Fielder’s meeting with Holmes in prison. Abbott and Seyfried had previously starred together in “The Testament of Ann Lee,” which may have been how he was recruited to the film.

Early in the film, Fielder is interviewing Holmes and Evans as they make breakfast at home. Holmes is whisking eggs and talking to Fielder when Evans abruptly takes the bowl away from his partner and proceeds to whisk the eggs himself. Noticing the brief awkward moment, Fielder asks why Evans did that, and Holmes replies that Evans thinks she doesn’t prepare the eggs the right way and that he can do it quicker. It’s a quick moment but illustrates early on that Evans can be controlling over Holmes’ life, even with minor details.

In an early, bizarre moment, Evans is filmed working out at a gym and then is seen showering completely naked at home. It’s a shocking, uncomfortable scene that alerts audiences that something may be off with Evans. Was it a power play or alpha-male move? Afterwards, he has an awkward moment with Fielder when he walks past the director while wearing just a towel.

Holmes, who was convicted of defrauding Theranos investors, claims she’s never told a lie in her life — not even a little white lie. Fielder grills her about this early in the film, but Holmes can’t think of any fib she’s ever told. It remains a mystery how Holmes is able to completely separate her own version of truth from actual reality, especially after she’s been convicted of fraud.

The unique title of the doc is never explicitly explained, but it references an odd text from Holmes to Fielder that seems to be sent while she’s out on the beach with Evans. It comes after the couple agrees to let Fielder live with them 24/7 to film the doc, and Holmes writes “fyi you can totally see everything…” The text and its meaning are never brought up by anyone in the film, so it’s unclear if it was an oddly friendly text from Holmes to Fielder or there was some other reason behind it.

Fielder shows Holmes the famous Abbott and Costello comedy routine to try to get her to acknowledge her confusing, or purposely misleading, language about the failed Theranos technology. In a previous scene, Holmes said the Theranos blood test can work, but that the scientific processes to make it work don’t exist yet — so it cannot currently work but Holmes asserts that it still can. When asked if she finds “Who’s on First?” funny, Holmes says “yes” but can’t articulate what’s funny about it. She can’t see the correlation between it and her own intentionally ambiguous phrasing and starts to tear up; Evans then says that she has her own beautiful view on the world and that’s one of the reasons he loves her.

In an early contentious moment, Evans interrupts an interview between Fielder and Holmes’ dad where they touch on Holmes’ personal relationships. Holmes’ father had been talking about Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Holmes’ ex-boyfriend and Theranos COO who was also convicted of fraud. According to Holmes’ dad, Balwani, who’s 19 years older than Holmes, was the real mastermind behind the Theranos case and manipulated the younger founder. When Fielder asks what the father thinks about Evans and Holmes’ relationship, Evans interrupts and asks for the interview to end. When they try to start back up, Evans shuts it down again.

After Holmes says she hadn’t seen “The Dropout,” Fielder shows her Hulu’s fictional series starring Amanda Seyfried as the Theranos founder. Holmes and Evans sit in bed, with Fielder nearby watching their reactions, but it proves too challenging and Holmes has to turn the laptop off. Seyfried won an Emmy for playing Holmes in 2022, and the show was nominated for best limited series.

Leading up to reporting for prison, Holmes spends her final hours as a free woman with her family…with Fielder awkwardly close by. To give her and Evans some alone time, Fielder offers to leave them alone so they can go have sex one last time. They don’t take him up on it, but they do shower and freshen up before Holmes leaves to begin her sentence.

Before they say their goodbye, Fielder has a gift he wants to give Holmes ahead of her prison stay, but he prefaces it by saying it may be in poor taste. Holmes opens the present and sees that it’s hair dye and sunglasses, which Fielder explains as a joke in case she wanted to escape from prison. Holmes’ parents, who look on silently, are not fans of the present.

Fielder and Holmes have a surprisingly sweet, albeit awkward, goodbye before she heads to prison. They hug and a tearful Holmes tells Fielder that everything is going to be ok, even though she’s the one going to jail for 11 years. They linger and look at each for just a few seconds too long, with the camera zoomed in close, that you wouldn’t be wrong to think that they might’ve nearly kissed had this been a romance movie.

In another bizarre choice after Holmes goes to prison, Evans has her body scanned and hires a company to create an lifelike AI version of her. Evans put a large screen in his new house and can interact with the AI Holmes, which replicates her speech.

During the recreation of Fielder and Oppenheim’s off-camera conversation with Holmes and Evans (played by Seyfried and Abbott), it’s revealed that Evans asked to be paid for their participation in the doc while Holmes stepped away. A24 had agreed to pay them, which would’ve severely impacted the credibility of the entire project that was supposed to be an independent look at the couple’s life. Then there’s the question of whether Holmes knew about Evans’ request to be paid. Did she intentionally leave the room while Evans negotiated so she could deny she knew anything about it? Or did Evans go behind her back while she was gone and demand to get paid on his own? In the end, however, it’s revealed that Evans withdrew his request for payment after filming, though no other explanation is given.

Seyfried and Fielder confront Evans about whether or not Holmes knew that he had requested to get paid for the doc, and their conversation quickly gets heated. Evans reveals that he’s been posting from Holmes’ verified X account, replying to comments and even trolling people while posing as Holmes online. He also claims that he has power of attorney over Holmes, which shocks and upsets Seyfried. When she speaks up, Evans lashes out at the actress and says that she’s only frustrated because she’d been getting backlash online for her comments about Charlie Kirk, who had been assassinated days prior. Evans then says he had supports Kirk’s beliefs (which should come as no surprise to viewers).

When Seyfried and Fielder visit Evans, they’re surprised when Holmes happens to call from prison at the same time they come over. Holmes spends most of her two-minute call speaking to Evans and their kids, but then Evans introduces Seyfried, who’s sitting on the couch with them. She and Holmes speak briefly but cordially, though Seyfried is mortified that she’s taking up precious time when Holmes could be talking to her kids. It’s the first, and seemingly only, time the two have ever spoken, since Seyfried hadn’t consulted the Theranos founder before playing her on “The Dropout.”

Fielder pays Evans one more visit after the contentious meeting with him and Seyfried, and things once again don’t go over well. Evans reveals that he’s armed 24/7 for his own safety and says that he knows ways to harm people, which paints him as even more of a villain in the film. He also claims to have a pre-recorded video ready to release publicly if he’s ever killed in a targeted attack.

Once Holmes is in prison, Evans moves houses to be closer to visiting her, which also gives him the opportunity to buy several new creepy-crawly pets. According to Vanity Fair, Evans owns a blue Argentine tegu, a corn snake, a curly-haired tarantula, blue death-feigning beetles and two Burmese forest tortoises. The tegu, a large lizard, is seen roaming the house freely while Fielder and Oppenheim film.

After Holmes goes to prison, Fielder tries to get ahold of her to talk on the phone, but Evans tries to block the call. Evans explains that if the prison finds out that Holmes’ phone call is being recorded, she could wind up being punished. At first, Fielder is incredulous and pushes for the call, and finally Holmes comes through and calls him. But instead of hearing the actual audio, Fielder recreates it using Seyfried as Holmes’ stand-in once again.

The movie ends on a quiet reveal: that Holmes and Fielder had gone swimming together earlier while he was staying with her and Evans. It’s not a bombshell moment, but rather one that calls into question how much of Fielder and Holmes’ relationship was a professional one vs. an authentic friendship.