October Movies Part 4: You Can See Everything & Wicker

There are too many movies in theaters right now and I am watching them all. If you are planning a foray to the movies, here are my thoughts on two films people have been eagerly anticipating!

You Can See Everything: Directed by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder, this is the documentary about how they were invited into disgraced inventor Elizabeth Holmes' house 34 days before she was due to go to prison to serve an 11-year sentence for defrauding investors in her company, Theranos. The first half of the movie consists of Fielder interviewing Holmes and her husband, Billy Evans, while their two young children run around blissfully unaware of the sordid life they have in store for themselves. And this is where we get those memeable moments we all saw from the trailer, where Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes are having intense conversations with unblinking eye contact and talking around in circles. Fielder seems thoroughly perplexed as to why they even agreed to do this, and he is determined to figure out whether this woman is just incredibly naive or an incredible liar. Which leads to my favorite scene of the movie, where they all watch the Abbott & Costello "Who's on First" routine.

I had this movie completely spoiled for me, so don't read any further if you don't want to know about the second half. OK? You've been warned. This is when the actress Amanda Seyfried shows up and Fielder uses her to re-enact certain moments from before the documentary began, when he was still in negotiations with Holmes and Evans to begin filming. Nothing is more meta than watching Seyfried watch Holmes watch Seyfried playing her in The Dropout. It is clear that Seyfried is a girl's girl, because when she watches all of the footage that Fielder has compiled so far, she is horrified by what a terrible man Evans is and immediately says, "I want to break them up!" There are some more unpleasant altercations with Evans and overall, the movie makes it clear that this guy is an absolute nightmare of a human being. 

Does this movie need to be three hours long? Absolutely not. It's extremely self-indulgent and a bit of a slog until Seyfried shows up to make it truly surprising and novel. But this movie also has no answers to provide and just adds on to the endless speculation and weirdness that swirls around this unfathomable woman and her terrible husband. The movie itself is so stylized, with sumptuous cinematography that oftentimes made me even forget I was watching real people - Holmes and Evans can feel like they're just actors, and everyone's working off the world's most incomprehensible script. It's an absolutely unique and mindboggling cinematic experience, but only one that I would recommend to people who really love cinema or are very obsessed with Elizabeth Holmes.

Wicker: The minute the trailer for this movie was released, the straight women of the world collectively clamored to see it ASAP. I mean, Alexander Skarsgard as a man made of wicker who is going to rail Olivia Colman? I'm sold! Written and directed by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, based on a short story by Ursula Willis, this movie is funny and gorgeous but is not just wicker porn. Which is a little disappointing. Foolishly, I wasn't expecting an actual plot.

The film takes place in a backward ye olde English village where women are expected to marry and birth babies and obey their husbands. Colman is the local Fisherwoman, a lonely, orphaned lady who always smells of fish and is a source of ridicule. Fed up and a little sad, she goes to the Basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage) and asks him to make her a husband. He is surprised by the request but rises to the challenge, and in a month's time, she is married to a man made of wicker (Skarsgard). The marriage is very happy because not only is her husband a great lover, he also wants to make her happy by doing chores around the house and making sure everything is neat and tidy. She works, while he tends to the house, and the patriarchal villagers are all appalled by these goings-on, but also secretly curious at this new way of living. 

Elizabeth Debicki plays the Doctor's Daughter/Tailor's Wife who is the Fisherwoman's main antagonist. I won't ruin the rest of the film, but suffice to say, once we stop focusing on the Fisherwoman's love life, there's a lot of plot to get through about these terrible villagers who are jealous of her good fortune and the uproar that she generally causes among the wives because she's getting some good lovin' while they are not. The husbands are also annoyed that the Wicker Husband is showing them up, and this quickly devolves into a movie about gender politics and how women deserve to be treated. The movie is absolutely gorgeous to look at, and it had better be in the running for a Best Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar because Skarsgard's wicker presence is utterly beguiling. I'm not sure that I particularly cared about the plot though, as it was fairly simplistic. But if you're in the market for a very funny and unusual romance, that features wonderful leading performances and then a supporting cast of actors you may recognize from a slew of British shows, this is a great way to spend two hours at the movies!