Amanda Seyfried – A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

If the story of Elizabeth Holmes and the company Theranos, which started when Holmes was only 19 years old in 2003, were introduced to the world as a work of fiction, no literary agency or production company would have bought it. The reason is that this entire 15-year story of one young woman with a revolutionary medical breakthrough that never worked, who then became the youngest self-made billionaire, is so insane that it’s too bizarre to make a movie or publish a novel.

Holmes and some scientists she hired into her company believed they could create a machine that could perform any number of complex blood tests using only one drop of blood, no longer needing to wait days for the results. If this was possible, then the two largest blood testing companies in the world, LabCorp (14 billion annual revenue) and Quest Diagnostics (11.4 billion annual revenue), would cease to exist, and medical science would advance by decades. Unfortunately, Holmes and her top employees lied to all of their investors, many of them very wealthy and famous people, tricking them into investing in a machine that never worked as they said it would. The most insane part of this crazy story is why these intelligent, wealthy people did not insist on seeing this machine work throughout the entire process of testing the drop of blood, verifying the results using the latest medical science, and then validating the results with the aid of the federal government.

At its peak, in 2015, Theranos was worth 9 billion dollars, and Elizabeth Holmes was worth 4.5 billion dollars, all based on lies that were maintained for years and cheated investors out of billions of dollars. One year later, the value of Theranos was worthless. Six years later, Holmes was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

The new documentary, “You Can See Everything”, is a film of an interview with director Nathan Fielder during the 34 days that Elizabeth Holmes spent in a small rented San Diego house with her boyfriend, Billy Evans, and her two children, prior to her going to prison for 11 years for her crimes as CEO of Theranos. Unbelievably, Holmes still believes that she did nothing wrong when she was questioned by Fielder about her many crimes. Holmes eyes are large and penetrating, and she seemed close to crying as she pleaded with Nathan Fielder to believe she was innocent. There was an insight into how Holmes mind works when she was shown the Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on First”, and she had no understanding of why this famous routine was funny.

Holmes’s fiancé, Billy Evans, also seemed about as insane as Elizabeth while talking with Fielder, with both Fielder and Holmes both still believing in Theranos and actually planning a second release of the company.

When Holmes was in prison, the actress who played her in the Hulu series “The Dropout”, Amanda Seyfried, reprised her Emmy-winning 2022 role, playing Holmes in scenes of Fielder interviewing her in prison. In other scenes, Seyfried was interviewed as herself by Fielder, discussing the accusations about the accuracy of the Hulu series ” The Dropout” and the many difficulties Seyfried had playing that part. This entire documentary had a very dark, slow, and unusual pace, and for that reason is very unique as a documentary. I also thought there was no reason why this movie needed to run almost 3 hours.

The reviews for this documentary are 99-100%, with some critics writing that this movie could win the Oscar for Best Picture. Due to some of the slow and boring parts and the too-long running time, I give this movie a 90% rating and a very strong recommendation.

The new Hulu series “The Dropout” is one of those very rare true stories that would never work as Fiction, because nobody would ever believe that something this insane could ever happen.

“A 19 year old girl, Elizabeth Holmes drops out of Stanford with an idea to start her own company and change the world. Her idea was so profound and valuable that if it worked it would change the course of medical science forever”. Unfortunately, her idea – brilliant that it was – never did work. The idea that one drop of blood could replace a vile or vile’s of blood required to give a human being an accurate blood test was so compelling that her company Theranos was able to fool investors out of millions of dollars. At its peak, Theranos was valued at 9 billion dollars. Even more amazing was that many of the investors that Elizabeth conned and lied to for years included George Shultz, Larry Ellison and even Henry Kissinger. It is almost impossible to believe that so many people lost money over a blood testing machine that nobody who invested in Theranos – actually saw – test blood accurately – or at all. This entire nightmare of lies and deception started with the huge narcistic ego of a young girl, who wanted to be like Steve Jobs and rule the world – with everything else simply acceptable collateral damage.

As this excellent 8 part series unfolded, we find out that the myriad of non stop lies was virtually unlimited, at one point even involving Pharmaceutical giant Walgreens who was conned into sending blood from their own customers to Theranos, where they diluted the blood, used another machine from another company and risked the lives of thousands of people, by giving incorrect blood tests. As disgusting as the company behind the story of “Erin Brockovich”, Purdue (the company behind the opioid crisis), the employees who worked at Theranos did not care that people could die after getting an incorrect blood test. They only cared about collecting money and continuing their lies, never caring about human life.

The acting in this 8 part series is outstanding, starting with Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes, Naveen Andrews as Sunny Balwani, CO-CEO of Theranos and an excellent supporting cast throughout this series.

Some weeks ago, Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty on 4 of the 11 counts of fraud and when she is finally sentenced later this year, she could spend as much as 20 years in jail. Justice finally served.

The ratings for this great series are a very high 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, with my rating 95%. I highly recommend The Dropout.