So, I was having this discussion with a friend and thought I’d bring it up here… Basically, we were talking about that enduring trend of sequels, remakes, and adaptations coming out of Hollywood. This is not a “new wave,” but this latest wave has long turned into a tsunami, and I’d argue it should lead to disastrous results.

For starters, let’s agree that Hollywood has always been a machine for producing commercial works, and also that plenty of works of considerable artistic value have been produced within the major studio system—remember, Alfred Hitchcock was fully integrated into it. But the commercial Hollywood of the old days seemed to leave more room for artistic achievement—even a blockbuster sequel like James Cameron’s "Aliens" could feel worth the price of admission.

Now, the industry has increasingly organized its commercial strategy around building or expanding intellectual-property portfolios. To “buy Warner” is also to buy Harry Potter and the Tolkien universe; when Disney bought Fox, it acquired X-Men, Avatar, The Simpsons, Alien, and a big library of titles.

Here’s where I see a catch... If established intellectual property offers greater security than betting on a new work, every studio has a rational incentive to keep exploiting its most valuable franchises. Disney remakes Disney, Marvel expands Marvel, Lucasfilm expands Star Wars, Warner returns to Harry Potter, DC, and Tolkien. Individually, each decision may make sense; collectively, they saturate the market with the very thing that was supposed to provide security.

We can sense a certain fatigue for quite some time. People choose to pass on a movie (“I’ll wait for it to hit Disney+”) and eventually lose interest altogether (“Oh! Is it on Disney+ already? I forgot. I’ll add it to the list of stuff I’ll never actually sit down and watch.”). I’m not saying audiences have abandoned Marvel, Star Wars, or Disney’s live-action princesses altogether. I’m saying that the familiarity of a franchise is no longer enough; now, a new release also needs a sense of exceptionality. An Avatar that comes along once in a blue moon; a new Spider-Man or, better yet, a new Avengers.

Simply put: the strategy designed to make commercial filmmaking safer may produce precisely what makes each new film feel less necessary. That's how I see it, anyway. The silver lining is that this may push Hollywood to rediscover the sense of exceptionality that audiences seem to crave more and more.

I've only recently discovered the short but shiny moment of queer visibility that happened 100 years ago, called "The Pansy Craze" - which overlaps a ton with pre-hays code films. Did everyone know about it already? If not...

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, queer performers were headliners, drawing huge crowds, and appearing in mainstream entertainment. Then came a backlash that pushed that visibility underground.

Sound familiar? Yeah, it's happening again.

I was so engrossed in this topic, that I watched a bunch of pre-code films and created a youtube video about it. What's your favorite pre-code film? Any recommendations? I'm making a master list.

You noticed that Inceptionesque "BWOOONG" sound in the middle of the movie, right? The foghorn-like noise that tells everyone we need to go deeper? Yeah, that's not a coincidence. And it's not a coincidence that the song playing at the end of the film has French lyrics like the Edith Piaf song in Inception.

Here's what's going on: two levels down, we are being presented with the idea of climate collapse through the farce that is the play called "Fossil Fools". At this point it's absurd the way nuclear holocaust is in Dr. Strangelove, and it lulls us into a false sense of security by giving audiences exactly what they expected from the trailer: a hammy satire poking fun at conservative politicians, Texas oilmen, and anti-science evangelicals.

But when the tree falls and the giant man pops up from behind the hill, the illusion is destroyed and we're transported to the next level up. During these scenes the characters struggle with a question: how should climate collapse be portrayed? Whatever is going on, it's no longer a farce; we're forced to accept the reality of climate collapse (in the film's universe) because the play is recounting "real" events.

And that's why the film ends the way it does, with "Level 4" warning the theatre-goers to don their masks before stepping out into a dystopian world. It's supposed to be a gut-punch when the doors open, because we've gone from climate collapse as farce, to climate collapse as an academic question about art, to climate collapse as the daily reality of the actors and audience. When "Level 4" again blares out in our IRL theatres, it's going up to the "top level" as it were, where we ourselves are exiting the theatre and it's no longer a dream. The film is using the layers portrayed in Inception to plant an idea - climate collapse is real - and to gradually reinforce it as we move up level by level.

But it goes deeper than that. "Inception" introduces the idea that Dom himself is deceived; that while he believes he is the one executing the heist and that Fischer is his mark, it is Dom himself who is being led out of a maze; that the entire plot is really about freeing him, getting him to accept the idea that he and his wife did have their time together, that they did grow old together, so that Dom can achieve the catharsis he needs in order to return to his children in reality.

In "Digger", Curtis Markson is the one who is deceived - as well as many critics and viewers. And this deceit flies under the radar because unlike the rest of the film, this aspect is extremely subtle. It's easy to see why people interpret Kenny's "you're both right" speech to be Inarritu saying something like "it's true that art doesn't solve the problems it portrays, but it's still worth making", and that may in fact be the subtext. But what is it doing in the context of the film?

There are really only two monologues in the movie: the one Digger gives to the European leaders in Fossil Fools, and the one Kenny gives to Curtis Markson and the rest of the play's cast. Both speeches are given by a member of the Rockwell family, and both are meant to persuade people to go along with something despite their misgivings. This should be setting off alarm bells, and yet Curtis completely misses them. All those hours he spent watching the real Digger Rockwell, seeing how the man was not just a buffoon but a cunning sociopath, and he doesn't realize what kind of person is standing right in front of him.

Because the speech Digger gives to the European leaders is incredibly layered and Digger himself is highly charismatic. There are real issues with abandoning fossil fuels which is why the simplest thing to do is simply to keep on drilling and suffer the consequences. Likewise, there are real issues with changing the play to seriously portray how powerful and manipulative Digger really was. Is Curtis really going to blow up the performance to insist on a more realistic portrayal? Is he going to inconvenience all the people coming to see the performance and jeopardize the livelihood of everyone else involved in the play? Of course not - he can't even put it on hold until his daughter is found. He caves, just like society caved on getting off fossil fuels.

And that's why the ending of "Fossil Fools" parallels the end of the performance itself. That drawn-out sequence on the oil rig where Digger prays for food and apparently gets it, only to leap to his death once the illusion wears off, lines up with the joy and back-patting of the performance, where Curtis and everyone else is celebrating before "Level 4" returns them all to reality. Even after everything that's happened, the world is still ruled by Rockwells, because we're unable to say no to them whether that means giving up fossil fuels or insisting on artistic integrity.

Towards the end of an interview conducted by Dick Cavett Jean-Luc Goddard was asked on clarification concerning a time he sent both Diane Keaton and Robert De Niro proposals to play the same part. His thinking was that he would take whoever said yes first. But both Keaton and De Niro, and subsequently other people (including Cavett) who heard of this story, were puzzled & confused as to how and/or why this would work. They were unable to reconcile what Goddard wanted with what they were used to. The reverse can also be true in that Goddard made an assumption that didn't align with the reality of how filmmaking and movies worked.

But what is interesting to me is the different viewpoints both sides had as to what character is. From this exchange a character to Goddard, as he himself explains, is like a vehicle for themes, ideas and motivations. To the other camp a character is a person; flesh and blood, only unreal in the sense that they are viewed through a screen. Thus if you were Goddard, you would have an idea or lesson you want to show, then have a framework for that character, then go on to humanise them by giving a body, age, features and so on. On the other hand, you have a human being and then you imbibe them with morals, motivations and what not.

The discourse in this interview at times hovered around the differing sensibilities of American and European cinema, so its easy to think that the whole issue is simply a matter of opposite roads arriving at the same destination. But it begs the question, what do people think "playing a part" or "playing a character" really means? And do the writing/acting approaches employed in doing it matter? And why would professional performers who are experts in their craft such as De Niro and Keaton be puzzled by Goddard's request?

There's obviously (and rightfully) a lot of discussion about this movie, but it's almost universally praised as "genius" and "reality bending" and "revolutionary". There are very few critical takes, and most of those aren't taken seriously or are immediately dismissed.

But that puts people in an awkward position: agree with the praise, or be cast as someone who doesn't "get it". There doesn't seem to be any room for, "I understand and appreciate what the movie is trying to do but I question how well it actually does it".

It makes discussing the movie a little frustrating. Criticism is usually met with "you didn't get it" or "they did that on purpose!".

But high concept claims that the movie is really about "truth" and "reality" and "subjectivity" aren't actually counterarguments or defenses.

There are legitimate criticisms of how effectively it explores those ideas. Does the ambiguity necessarily reveal something meaningful, or does it simply manufacture uncertainty by intentionally withholding or manipulating context? And if "manufacturing uncertainty" is "the point", then what is the ambiguity actually revealing? Is it just that "sometimes it's hard to know what's true"?

Do the reenactments deepen our understanding or mostly just add a layer of contrived performance?

Does acknowledging its own manipulation automatically make that manipulation more defensible or credible?

Those questions aren’t evidence that someone missed "the point". They’re questions about whether the movie really earns the significance people are attributing to it.

I’m not saying people should enjoy it less. I'm not even saying I didn't enjoy it myself (because I did). I’d just like there to be room to question its effectiveness without having my understanding of it questioned instead.

(preface)
I wrestled with the film Wildwood and wrote this essay for myself. I went to post it and was greeted by outside information that clarified many of the answers I had arrived at when working through the film on its own. Then came an epilogue of eureka and glee. I believe this encapsulates why self-reflection is an essential aspect of consuming art and I encourage others to wrestle themselves if we are to survive the coming age.

(the original essay)
Wildwood depressed me. For some reason each step I have taken afterwards has been accompanied by distant screams from within. The voices cry out behind my eyes, “Cast it out so it does not take root!” Thus:

A beautifully crafted hollow image is the most painful to watch. It wasn’t that I didn’t “agree” with everything that happened. I did. I get the movie. It is about the climate catastrophe and the older generation sacrificing the younger generation because of their outdated beliefs. It is about seeing magic in a rationalist world that stops the young from venturing into the unknown. It is about duty and fighting for what you believe in. It is about the fear of death. It is an updated Chronicles of Narnia, where Aslan is an Eagle and Christianity has been exchanged for liberal plant worship.

There was something distressingly inhuman about it, even though it screamed “humanity” constantly at its audience. When you watch it, it wants you to think it is good. Look at how much “art” happened! “It was crafted by human hands! Thousands and thousands of human hands! It was not made by a machine!”

I fear that this is a harbinger of liberal humanist battlegrounds for the coming fight against AI. They think we need to recruit human bodies to form the machine. I.e. a 21st century John Henry. It is a cruel misunderstanding of what art is. Art is never in the labor. Labor is necessary to realize a vision, but if labor is spent realizing something hollow and inhuman, that labor was simply work, not art. If this is the ground we choose to fight on, we will have lost before the battle even begins.

(Unfortunately a majority of the film’s most popular reviews occupy this ground – “the biggest middle finger to generative AI of all time.”)

This film is a contemporary pyramid. In truth, we have never stopped building the pyramids. Our culture is just as obsessed with religious temples as any that has come before, we just have different gods. Films and media are the temples of our time. The religious epicenter of any culture is simply whatever art people care about and engage with. We have exchanged religious services for media consumption, but we are still human. We can still feel truth and belief in the poetic genius when we see it, and we, like every other culture, seek to enshrine and pass down works that testify to where the human condition can reach towards at a given moment.

However, we have entered an era of objectivity. Where the thing must be “good” because it has been quantified as “good” based on empirical evidence. We assess our art as scientists and think the greatest works have the most “art” inside of them. For example, “Each frame of this movie has more “art” than that other movie.” This gets us in an inhuman situation where we forced ourselves to think that the temple must hold a god, because it is objectively “valuable” and formalisticly “beautiful.”

Think of someone in ancient Egypt. How would it feel for this individual to enter that pyramid that had been touched and cared for by all of their community? What if when they stood at the center, they were confronted, not with a god, but by the empty and cruel vanity of man. Standing inside that ornate monument, should this individual justify the pharaoh’s divinity simply because of the amount of death and toil which constructed his magnificent temple? Is it disrespectful to the slaves that gave their lives to build it, to observe something hollow at its center? And is it disrespectful to the slaves that gave their lives to build it, to seek for the pyramid to be torn down?

To the ground. We must destroy our beautiful empty temples no matter how uncomfortable this makes us feel. How can I justify this review to the laborers who spent years of their lives building this film? I can do it by arguing that the alternative is much worse. If we are to survive the coming age, we must be unafraid to reveal what makes us human. We must gather around works of art that do not reflect the vague systematic notion of humanity but works of art that could ONLY be created by a living breathing human being. This film uses labor and technology directed towards an objective surface level – the level of the filmic image. Despite the warnings of the AI bell tollers, we will always “win” against what we have created because the human condition is indescribable. Even words are the fumbling afterthought of something long dead inside our souls. As subjective creatures, we can never be “replaced” because what makes us human cannot be manifest, only hinted at. However, we can be replaced if our battle rests at the objective surface level. We must never forget that our images are nothing without their source, no matter how laborious or formally technical that image might be. We must not worship labor and efficiency because this is the language of capitalism not art.

This film is more like patronage than art. Attempting to artificially realize a “consensus.” Patronage is wanting the world to be thought of a certain way and having the resources to make a mass amount of people see the world in this way. This is the logic of Pharaohs. Winning over the mass, not by touching their soul and shaping what they believe, but by constructing the worlds they are forced to perceive. I fear this film thinks art is just a fake version of the “real” world -- "the real world should become like this fake world because of how beautiful and expensive it was to craft."

This is not acceptable. We must feel the human breath in our art. Create something that is unique to yourself. We are subjective beings. I felt the objectivity of this world in every frame. All the hands on the clay, and all the hands on the writing, all the hands on it. Just too many hands. It is too much. How can any human cry out in this ornate world where the bar to be "heard" is placed beyond the capabilities of the individual? This is not saving us from the machine; this is fighting the machine on its terms. The communal artistic language of the species is slowly being moved beyond the capabilities of the individual artist, into a world of mass toil and expensive technology. And once that happens, we will find ourselves trapped in a fake world unable to cry out.

How painfully this irony slips through the fingers of this film’s makers. The film is about sacrificing the “individual” innocent in an attempt to create a fake version of life. It wears the costume of the savior while it itself holds the knife. This objective quantification art traps our culture’s most vulnerable in a simulation world of beautiful inhuman images and the inability to change them unless they become machines themselves. We are not meant to be willing cogs in an artistic machine. What the hell is happening. Can no one see the insanity of this statement?

I have probably been too hard on this film in particular. It is just painful to watch something that claims it is freeing the young while actively building chains to ensnare them. It was screaming at me to praise it, but the more it screamed at me, the more I wept.

(epilogue)
IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN! THIS MOVIE WAS MADE BY A BILLIONAIRE! I KNEW IT THE WHOLE TIME. It speaks the language of money. I felt it in every frame. It is SUCH a billionaire movie. They are surrounded by formalistic beauty with empty empty teeny tiny souls. HAHAHA. Of course this man thinks art is as many little hands as possible endlessly laboring over his own bland stupid vision. CAPITALISM AS ART HAHA! And we praise it! How about we stop letting vampires tell us about the human condition. I SAID it was a pyramid without knowing any of this. We are all in the pyramid and we praise the Pharaoh for his slave labor! Haha! It is even funnier because it is NIKE who literally uses slave labor. These people are parasites who don’t want to stop sucking but don’t want to feel bad about it. They fund these vanity projects as sleeping pills. The landed gentry want to play artist so they build the fanciest prettiest most expensive stage hahahaha! They are combining technology and art, so only they have the tools to play! They will never win on fair terms so they change the rules! They feel nothing and they think the problem is that the images they look at are not constructed well enough.

How did I read all of this just from watching the film by itself? My soul immediately cried out in pain after consuming something empty. I am sure many of these 5-star reviewers felt the emptiness as well but rationally justified their praise because they want to appear as "pro-art." This whole thing is just like Jessie Plemmons at the end of Digger. That is scary. Wow. What a fun night. This is why you engage with art yourself instead of treating it like a science. Look at how many volunteer to guard an empty temple! HAHA! If you guard something you never have to look inside! We love the pharaohs and want to keep building their temples! According to these comments, Billionaires are the only ones capable of creating "Art in its purest form!" Our lives are really just an extension of theirs! This is what happens when god dies – the men with power move into the temple. Then humanity has toil without even the chance at salvation. And guess what this film tells us – our toil IS our salvation! HAHAHA! AMAZING! And we praise it

You can tell how scared he is based on how beautifully he made each frame. He has meticulously curated his outside to compensate for the chasm that is his inside. If you have something you want people to listen to, stick your neck out. That is what an actual human artist does. This man has hidden himself inside of precisely what our culture is afraid of attacking -- artistic labor. Come out of the dark and look your laborers in the eyes. See how it feels to tell them what you are actually doing, "Your toil for my temple is your only chance at salvation. If you want material art to survive, I am your savior. Your lives and labor are nothing but a costume I wear to seek love from others without having to change myself." Something tells me they won't find it as convincing when coming from your lips.
- Written 25 October 2026

It's literally over performing it's box office expectations for those in the know. It's billionaire funded so it's not vulnerable like a normal film. It about that 100 percent rotten tomatoes score and the guaranteed Oscars it bring to the to Knight family and Nike. I like to hear to discussion of the film itself but acting like it's box office gross vs it's budget is an indication the film failed doesn't know what Laika sets out to do with their movies. I also find a lot of the discussion on reddit has no specific actual critiques, like pacing concerns, but no specific examples of where it dragged or what they didn't like. It feels lazy and performative to shit on a 100 score rotten tomatoes movie like that, without even providing specifics.

I also want to push back it's for kids, not really actually. I heard Laika people talk about how it's deeply an homage to LOTR and Narnia, things our generation if your older grew up with and usually Love when movies grow up those themes, especially with a new or interesting visual style.

Not to mention it's battle scene is one of the best EVER put to cinema and it isn't afraid of dark story beats reminiscent of treasured fantasy by millennials and older people as well, like I don't see anything here that screams "only for kids" if anything it was refreshingly dark for fantasy of this kind in cinema

Lately I have been seeing more and more posts, tweets, quotes and articles about Gen Z’s decreased interest in sex scenes in movies and TV. This npr article mentions a study that shows that “Generation Z is far more interested in seeing stories of platonic relationships on screen than those featuring sex and romance”. I can understand being against gratuitous sex and romance that is completely unnecessary to the plot. I cannot understand being against nudity and sex as basically “completely unnecessary”. Sex, nudity and romance can be incredible important to the story. It helps show vulnerability, weakness, desire, insecurity, excitement and love. Sex and romance are also such a large part of the human experience to so many people. They are deeply important and connecting to so many people as well.

All of this makes me wonder, can you be anti-sex and anti-romance and still consider yourself a cinephile? Or do you think this would exclude you from too much important cinema that you could only be considered a casual movie lover? I personally think that if you are unable to connect with movies that feature sex and romance, you cannot take in enough of the full cinematic experience to be considered a cinephile

Edit: I was watching Thelma and Louise which features a sex scene between Thelma and JD (a young Brad Pitt). I think the movie is better because it features that sex scene. If it were removed from the movie, it would have been a worse movie because of it. The sex helps sell you on how charming Pitt’s character is to be able to trick Thelma like that. It also shows you how Thelma’s sexual experience was very intense and pleasurable for her, contrasting how sexually unfulfilled she was in her crumbling marriage. It also shows her being excited and giggly after having a great sexual experience, a feeling that (hopefully) many people can connect to. The sex scene served multiple purposes to the movie and if it hadn’t featured that sex scene, the movie wouldn’t have told the full story as well as it did

Edit 2: I think one of the only things that might be an apt comparison, is saying you won’t watch any films with violence or crime in them. If someone said they can’t enjoy any movies with violence or crime, they would be missing out on such a huge portion of influential and popular movies

Edit 3: This post sure has sparked a lot of discussion! Seems most people defending Gen Z think this is mostly an anti-gratuitous sex viewpoint or avoiding nudity performed simply for the male gaze. That is reassuring to me. I hope this isn’t a big generational issue where Gen Z is becoming more puritanical and fanatical

It's obvious why she does it in context, but why is it in the film itself?

Context:

3 Samurai and one of the farmers (the one who has been most keen on fighting back against the bandits from the beginning) go to the bandit hideout to cause some difficulty for the bandits before they attack the village. It's hinted at clearly that the farmer had a wife before and is sensitive on the topic, and then during the attack on the bandit hideout where one of the buildings is burned while they're sleeping, it's shown that the farmers wife is alive in the building.

When she's last to leave the burning building, she and the farmer see each other, and then she kills herself out of shame.

Question:
But why is it in the movie? As far as I gathered, the movie is mostly about the different personalities of the samurai, the farmers collective personalities, and how the two groups interact, and how they are working together against a common goal, and the sadness the samurai experience for their nobility of doing something purely for goodness sake. And the cool camera work/acting/the usual Kurosawa stuff.

Was Kurosawa making a comment on how Japanese culture's emphasis on honour isn't that great, because "look how it tarnished what should have been a good victory over the bandits"? I suppose maybe that feels odd to me because in the current day and age it's such an obvious idea that honour deaths are insane that it seems unnecessary to point them out, and times were different in 1950's Japan and earlier.

Maybe it makes the first death of a samurai more impactful because he's trying to save the farmer, whereas if the wife hadn't been there and the farmer wasn't being distressed outside the burning building, it would've been less potent if the samurai just got shot in a regular fight. But then I feel like that cheapens what happens to the woman.

Could also be another layer of suffering the village has experienced through the bandits, highlighting the respectability of the samurai's decision to help them, but that's kind of half the point of the movie, so a bit redundant.

Maybe all of the above.

Is there another cinematic/script writing explanation?

edit: less than 20 minutes and already downvoted without a reason. A move almost as classic as the movie itself.

I saw the movie yesterday, one thing that really stood out to me was Hwan Yoon's character.

It would be so easy for them to just make him a one note hardcore Christian charlatan, but there are some interesting things they do with his character to complicate things (even though in the end they are still Christian extremists):

- in the fight in the strip club-turned-church he yells at his followers to not use their guns because there's a baby involved.

- the director could've easily made them all white guys to equate them to white supremacists (hell, their logo somewhat resembles the KKK as well), but he deliberately makes his band of fanatical followers diverse. The director I think said something about how he intentionally made the leader of the Christian cult a "colonized Korean". Reminds me of the choice to make the main vampire in Sinners Irish

- His attempt to deescalate things before the last fight in the mansion. This could read this two ways: either he's genuinely scared of what Latif can do and is just trying to prevent more of his men from dying (even though Latif has a sword and is outnumbered by his men who have guns), or he genuinely feels some kind of empathy/respect for him. He even invites him to share to the followers what Ramadan means to him; I think this invitation is genuine on some level and reflects that he does have some kind of respect for Islam

But I think the most interesting aspect of this is his reaction to the miracle at the end of the movie. A charlatan who doesn't actually believe in what he preaches wouldn't react like that; it's like he's realizing in real time that Latif has received divine providence from God/Allah the same way he received it in Iraq (he even asks Latif "who's praying for you?"). After the miracle he doesn't even try to fight Latif anymore. I think by the end of it all he sees Latif as an instrument of God - the same way he sees himself.

What do you guys think? I thought it was really interesting for the movie to portray a Christian fanatic who, despite being extremist, isn't a one note mustache twirling villain who just wants to kill all Muslims.

I watched it as a teen and found it painfully unengaging, it went right over my head.

Revisited it yesterday and thought it was very good, and respected that it didn’t pander to the naive - it assumes an adult audience who understand politics (be those of municipal government or the mob), and the rat-a-tat dialogue and complex plot doesn’t wait for dummies, like my teenage self, to catch up.

Great performances across the board. Pacino rocks as ever, and Cusack plays his young Southern protege called ‘Kevin’ - exactly like Keanu the following year in The Devil’s Advocate. Weirdly, Keanu’s Southern accent was far more convincing than Cusack’s is here.

Script by three titans - Paul Schrader, Nicolas Pileggi and Bo Goldman - is rich, snappy and fast paced, and along with director Harold Becker (reteaming with Pacino after Sea Of Love) create an unmistakably NEW YORK thriller.

Apparently the original Schrader script was a bigger, darker epic. It feels like that was squeezed into something more like The Firm (1993). It’s a solid 7.5/10 and a must-watch for Pacino and/or Cusack fans, or anyone who needs their Noo Yawk fix.

Lots of people framed Billy as either a gullible heir or a calculating opportunist, but I think what Billy and Liz are saying is genuinely true: they are building a monument of love.

This doc is an obsessive, high-stakes love story built on an interlocking psychological puzzle.

Why Billy Loves Liz:

If Billy operates with the classic fragile grandiosity of the NPD spectrum, his inner world is inherently vulnerable to slight, humiliation, and the urge for revenge. For a man wired that way, watching the world try to shatter Elizabeth Holmes only for her to stand there like a literal rock is intoxicating. She does not weep, panic, or fold; she simply refuses to register shame. To his fragile ego, that impenetrable calm looks superhuman. She is not a fallen CEO to him—she is a demigod.

Worshipping her offers the ultimate resolution to a grandiose savior complex. He isn’t merely marrying an heiress or managing real estate; he is an anointed crusader. By stepping between a misunderstood goddess and an uncomprehending, hostile mob, his life acquires mythic significance. Defending her allows him to strike back at the world’s mockery, turning its contempt into the holy fuel of his mission. He constantly feeds back the exact affirmations she needs, diligently tending the altar of her delusions because her absolute certainty is what keeps his own identity afloat.

Why Liz loves Billy:

The common assumption is that Elizabeth should resent Billy—that a controlling, frantic heir hovering over her shoulder and managing her image would eventually suffocate her. But that fundamentally misreads how her mind operates. Elizabeth doesn't resent his grandiosity; she is utterly in tune with it, because Billy’s particular brand of narcissism provides the exact psychological infrastructure she requires to survive.

Elizabeth is no helpless waif, nor is she a standard calculating con artist. Her cognitive baseline exists on a peculiar, off-world axis where empirical failure simply doesn't compute. But keeping that kind of radical detachment alive in the real world is exhausting work. The entire legal system, the media, and the public were aggressively trying to force her to concede: You lied, you failed, you broke the law.

An ordinary, grounded partner would have urged her to face reality, take accountability, or quietly grieve. That kind of partner would have been poison to her. She would have hated someone who tried to save her by forcing her to see the truth.

Enter Billy. His hunger to play the heroic, embattled crusader means he doesn't ask her to repent—he demands that she remain pure. He takes all the toxic sludge of the outside world—the lawsuits, the press cameras, the mockery—and absorbs it into his own vengeful war against an uncomprehending public. By letting Billy step in and orchestrate the defense, manage the optics, and dominate the practical logistics, Elizabeth buys complete psychological immunity.

Surrendering control to a protective, dominating man isn’t a concession for her; it is a masterstroke of emotional engineering. She happily gives up the mundane steering wheel because it keeps her core fantasy entirely pristine: she gets to remain the ethereal, misunderstood visionary who is merely "thinking differently" while her high priest handles the mud. She loves him because his need to worship a goddess is the only thing on earth that allows her to remain one.

The Monument of Love:

That worship translates into concrete, liturgical devotion. When Billy meticulously captures 3D scans of Elizabeth so their children can still feel her presence during her eleven-year sentence, it functions like an early devotee casting icons of a living saint. His pledge to be outside the prison gates at 9:00 AM sharp every single visitation day isn't just punctuality—it is regular attendance at Sunday Mass, keeping the sacred covenant intact. Whispering about launching a next-generation laser-and-AI venture from their bedroom while the federal intake clock ticks down isn't simple denial; it is reciting the scripture of their shared church.

They constructed a fortress of two against a world they both reject. It is disturbing, delusional, and undeniably romantic: a crusader laying siege to reality itself to keep his goddess untouched.

Crazy romance but hella compelling, 10/10!

I’ve seen people aggressively defending Digger. A twist around every turn, a lecture for every topic. But as critics have pointed out, it tries to have five cakes and eat them all too.

My experience was really exhausting. They change the direction every 20 minutes. First, we are presented with a tycoon who ignores all warnings to stop digging. We then hear about the disaster, striking almost immediately. Rockwell gathers with the others in charge, and the movie shifts: now, instead of protecting the people, they want to protect their public image with a firewall. We are then pulled to the twist.

When this twist came, I didn’t realize it was a play. I thought the twist was that they were in an underground facility, safe from the crumbling world, with the rooms to entertain them (because a hideout that looks like a backstage would be really boring, especially when they’re so rich) but them still wishing to preserve their public image. The set design works perfectly for this. From the beginning it looks surreal and artificial, like they’re trying to create a perfect but lifeless world. There’s a very evident contrast with the gritty outside world we see on the TVs. The movie had a great chance if it was instead about an underground facility, and their music (which sounded natural but naive, fake) and cinematography could’ve really helped the contrast. Those stakes were wasted.

A play really doesn’t make sense here. They spend a lot of the time in interiors, and Iñárritu justifies it with a modern, polarizing play technique called Live Cinema, where the insides are filmed and projected outside. This requires niche outside knowledge to understand, especially for a technique that contradicts the structure of a traditional play. Iñárritu was really just trying to find a way to realistically justify so much time spent in interiors in a play.

Iñárritu tries to justify everything in this film, while avoiding sincerity. The jokes aren’t funny? That’s the point, it’s supposed to be stupid. The characters are caricatures? That’s the point, it’s supposed to be shallow. The movie hurts your ears? That's the point, it's supposed to be loud. Even Digger’s actor in Fossil Fools dislikes the use of the Live Cinema technique and the shallowness of the characters and the overall indifference to the craft, but Kenneth wants to make something for the audiences. Iñárritu is so scared to make an actual message, so he hides it behind satire. In the end, he makes a satire of shallowness in modern satire, while making an equally shallow film, except it's justified because it's aware of the fact.

The film really does try to get a message about everything, and it becomes very exhausting to follow. Every 20 minutes they switch focus: careless tycoon, then media manipulation, then it’s a play, then the Indian guy is trying to save the world, then it’s the audiences’ fault, then Digger’s actor gets mad at the play and Kenneth explains this is about his family, and then the audience gets their entertainment, and then they are in a fascist landscape, and then we are the audience. The film points fingers at everyone, the characters, the elites, the audience, and you, and it gives a lecture about each of them. It's everybody's fault and nobody can fix anything, so why bother trying?

This movie only accomplishes to get you to laugh with the physical comedy, but not the satire itself. The movie instead prioritizes lecturing which you struggle to keep up with, which is really exhausting. It's literally preaching its message to you, with the only excuse for "subtlety" being the convoluting meta-narrative. Satire is supposed to be quick, sharp, and witty, giving both laugh and truth. Instead it lectures you, and the only funny parts in the movie are the quick comedy it satirizes and rejects (and even those moments rarely are done well and get you to laugh). After about an hour of the movie and five lectures, you think three hours have gone by, and the films still preaching about something subject to change. It's extremely exhausting to keep up with, especially when you have ten different noises fighting you.

The movie is loud. The audio mixing is horrendous. It is an assault on your ears. You could hardly make out what the director and Digger’s actor were arguing about. There is either another twist or there is angry bickering, so the movie can never come to a definitive climax. Apart from the beginning, the movie never escalates neither deescalates, and emphasizes nothing.

The characters were horrible, too. As I said, the movie avoids all sincerity, and this is especially true with the characters. They are treated like caricatures, even outside the satire. They only attempt to humanize Digger’s actor, who has a daughter at home, but that really means nothing. She is brought up once and we don’t form any connection with her or any of the other characters. And Kenny’s character is even worse. He acts submissive, and I thought he was just a servant. He doesn’t even know Digger’s actor. But really, he bought the rights to the play! HE is the main man of the show!

The movie fails to emotionally resonate and fulfill the sincere role every satire movie needs. It’s cynical and misanthropic; it mocks everyone, including the viewer, and makes it seem like we’re too far gone to solve this problem. It tried to make itself bulletproof, by justifying every decision as satire, and every preference as accounted for by the satire. But in the end, it’s an emotionless, miserable movie that neither makes you hopeless (because there’s nothing to care about anyway) nor incited, a movie that’s aggressive, meaningless, and nonchalant.

After slowly moving away from my admiration and obsession with comic book films and blockbuster films as a child/teen and moving toward appreciating more esoteric and transgressive expressionistic cinema from people like Abel Ferrara, Harmony Korine, Larry Clark, and Vincent Gallo (yes I know they aren’t that obscure, cool) I’ve learned to come to understand film performance in a more insightful way revealing of human nature. Directors like Ferrara and Gallo use performative repetition amidst transgression not to wallow in the exploitative degradation tableaux, but to reveal a deeper human truth that wouldn’t be present in a less repetitive sequence. I can give countless examples of this dramatic posture and its effect, but the best example I can recall is the scene of the kids planning the bully’s murder in Larry Clark’s bully. The audience has already stood the plan in full, so when the characters repeat it for the 11th time, it’s not to impart knowledge, but to visualize both literally and metaphorically what it’s like to genuinely plan out and perform transgressive behavior. Another example would be the scene of Harvey Keitel’s character in Bad Lieutenant demanding the young girl take her pants off. The first time he says it, it’s baffling, the second time it’s uncomfortable, the fifth time it reaches a spiritual level of discomfort, and that’s precisely the point.

I recently watched Gus Van Sant’s Last Day’s and he even takes this dramatic principle to another level. In the penultimate sequence, seeing Michael Pitt’s Blake (Cobain), play a song on the guitar for what felt like ten minutes, no cuts, no camera movement, and just being forced to bear witness to this individual expressing his shame and isolation in the purest and most communicative form he can was moving in a way that a film has never been before. The emotions in that duration were so raw it felt like I was witnessing something I hadn’t been permitted. And it reached an uncanny level as when I finally shed a tear the scene instantly ended. It makes me wonder how a director like Gus can be so tapped into the feelings of both the audience and the character it becomes alchemical and hypnotic.

With that being said, I’d like to share what I believe to be the best film performances following this “method” (if you can call it that) of self expression. Would love to hear some of your favorite/ best performances as well, and why those specifically.

Robert DeNiro - Raging Bull
Daniel Day Lewis - There Will Be Blood
Marlon Brando - The Godfather
Leonardo DiCaprio - The Aviator
MatthewMcConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club
Phillip Seymour Hoffman - The Master
Al Pacino - The Godfather Part II
Casey Affleck - Manchester By the Sea
Tony Leung - In The Mood For Love
Martin Sheen - Apocalypse Now
Christian Bale - The Machinist
Robert DeNiro - Taxi Driver
Edward Norton - American History X
JK Simmons - Whiplash
Harvey Keitel - Bad Lieutenant
Brendan Fraser - The Whale
Ellen Burstyn - Requiem for a Dream
Natalie Portman - Black Swan
Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine
Jake Gyllenhall - Nightcrawler
Jesse Eisenberg - The Social Network
Sean Penn - Mystic River
Tom Hanks - Forrest Gump
Anthony Hopkins - Silence of the Lambs
Joaquin Phoenix - Joker
Choi Min-sik - Oldboy
Denzel Washington - Malcolm X
Austin Butler - Elvis
Michael Fassbender - Steve Jobs
Hillary Swank - Million Dollar Baby
Daniel Kaluuya - Judas and Messiah
Jodie Foster - Silence of the Lambs
Andrew Garfield - Hacksaw Ridge
Leonardo DiCaprio - The Revenant
Ryan Gosling - Bladerunner 2049
Scarlett Johansson - Marriage Story
Emma Stone - La La Land
Jack Nicholson - Cuckoo’s Nest
Miles Teller - Whiplash
Michael Pitt - Last Days
Jason London - Dazed and Confused
Leo Fitzpatrick - Kids
Justin Pierce - Kids
Lakeith Stanfield - Judas and Messiah
Timothee Chalamet - Beautiful Boy
Jeff Goldblum - Deep Cover
Laurence Fishburne - Deep Cover
Rudy Youngblood - Apocalypto
Christina Ricci - Buffalo ‘66
Sean Penn - State of Grace
Gena Rowlands - Opening Night
Mia Goth - Pearl
Glen Howerton - BlackBerry
Vincent Gallo - Buffalo ‘66
Evan Rachel Wood - Thirteen
Dore Mann - Frownland
Tupac Shakur - Juice
Christina Ricci - Prozac Nation
Bijou Phillips - Bully
Zoë Lund - Ms.45

Haven’t seen much discussion on this and am curious about consensus (or lack)...

Just had a (rare for me) 3rd watch last night and this film continues to reveal so many turns and previously unnoticed cinematic gems, amazing for such a short and simple story. Dialog is extremely minimal and purposeful; intense action delivered with half-glimpses that deliver incredible moments of tension, impact, and emotional punch.

Favorite Joaquin Phoenix performance, or certainly one of them.

I recognize there’s a lot to unpack here—enough for a PhD dissertation—but I would love feedback, particularly from people with a background in psychology.

I also recognize there’s the world of reality and the universe created through cinema. A film’s edit can alter how we view a subject, interpret a sentence, or understand an entire situation. That distinction is part of what fascinates me here.

First, my claim of BEST FILM of 2026. I’d go as far as to say the last DECADE. For the last decade or longer, American cinema has heavily relied on franchises, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and theme park–leaning films to sustain theatrical exhibition, while anything considered “smaller” or “niche” has increasingly been pushed toward streaming. I ain’t gonna hate on the superhero genre, but I recognize a resulting deficit in the narrative forms offered in American theaters. Who knew a documentary could feel like such a theatrical event?

Now—to the film.
Spoilers ahead.

The moments that gave me a psychological jolt:

• The stillness of Holmes, her tears, and the extreme close-ups in this cinéma vérité style. What does that combination create psychologically in the viewer? We feel closer, but are we understanding more?

• Her father’s revelation in the kitchen about his daughter’s r*pe at 13—and how profoundly that shifted my interpretation of Holmes’ behavior.

• Billy seemingly dismissing this conversation and bringing the focus back to himself. Was I watching discomfort, protectiveness, or a need to control the conversation?

• The mother never speaking. In a culture where women have so often spearheaded conversations about sexual violence, while men have diminished them, the father speaking and the mother’s silence stood out to me. Whatever the explanation, that reversal affected how I read the scene.

• Holmes breaking down while watching Amanda Seyfried’s portrayal of her in THE DROPOUT, creating this sensation that Seyfried was the new villain.

• Then meeting Seyfried—and eventually hearing her call to action to go after Billy Evans. Suddenly, my sympathies were being redirected again.

• That dinner scene. Amazing. Evans seemingly wanting to dismiss Seyfried as some irrelevant actress; Seyfried holding her own, clearly appearing semi-drunk, acknowledging past tweets about a man I won’t name. Their political differences quickly become apparent, yet BOTH seem to be protecting Holmes from their own perspectives. Each appears to believe they see something the other doesn’t. WOW. Just wow.

• Evans’ apparent grift on Holmes and his constant sniffling. Yes, my mind went there—is he doing…??? But that also made me question how the film’s use of sound was encouraging my suspicion.

• Finally, Seyfried and director Fielder unpacking what to believe. What are we ultimately left thinking about any of these people—and how much do we understand anyone’s motivations, including theirs?

I know, I know. A lot to focus on and unpack.

But the thread connecting these moments is how often the film changes whom I trust—and why.

I think many of us can relate to this on a personal level. Who here has become a loved one’s power of attorney, or watched someone else take on that responsibility, only to have everyone’s expectations and relationships shift? You can find yourself trying to protect someone while questioning their decisions, the people around them, and eventually your own judgment. When does helping become controlling? When does protection serve the protector?
Then there’s the game playing. When do we interpret someone’s aloofness as vulnerability, and when do we interpret it as manipulation? Why do so many people in this world of future tech seem to lean into doublespeak—or something that feels like downright fraud?

I typically think of the psychological thriller as fiction with roots in classic film noir. This documentary, I wasn’t expecting.

Is the film a continuation of Holmes’ criminal grift? Is it revealing someone shaped by an environment that rewards selling a future before it exists? Could both be true—and what would that say about where society is headed?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people with a psychology background about these dynamics, while recognizing that we’re discussing an edited portrayal of real people. How do you distinguish empathy, projection, manipulation, and protection here? And did the film help you understand its subjects—or reveal how readily our own sympathies can be redirected?

As someone who did not enjoy this movie at all, I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what Holmes hoped to accomplish by allowing a filmmaker like Fielder to make a documentary about her, and why Fielder seemingly went out of his way to ignore or avoid exploring so much relevant information while playing dumb about what Elizabeth has done. I think Fielder framing the film as some intellectual exploration of what it means to make a documentary is part of the misdirection. I suspect the real objective is far more calculated: to reframe Elizabeth as a victim of Billy and a mentally ill but non-nefarious actor, rather than someone who knowingly orchestrated a massive fraud, while portraying Billy as a coked-out potentially abusive eccentric.

I wouldn't be surprised if Elizabeth, Billy, Fielder, and A24 all understood from the beginning how these portrayals would serve a broader image-rehabilitation strategy. Rather than producing an obvious Elizabeth Holmes redemption documentary, Fielder packages the narrative as an experimental, self-aware art-house film. We never get clear answers about whether Elizabeth is a liar but we are very clearly told time and time again that Billy is the villain in this movie. Even though there is infinitely more irrefutable evidence that Elizabeth is a liar than that Billy is an abusive husband.

The largely liberal, intellectually self-satisfied audience gets to congratulate itself for appreciating the film's supposed commentary on truth, documentary filmmaking, and media manipulation, without necessarily considering whether it's being manipulated in the process. So Fielder gets critical acclaim/ cash and Holmes becomes a sympathetic character suitable for pardon. Because you have to consider when a person is federally pardoned all restitution payments get wiped away so she would not have to pay back the 100's of millions she owes to the government and other victims.

Meanwhile, Billy is cultivating a persona and portrayed in the film as a gun-loving conservative Texas transplant, someone who could plausibly fit into Trump's political and social circles. I suspect that's the overall strategy is to rehabilitate Elizabeth's reputation with one audience while building legitimacy with people who might have influence over a pardon.

I know my theory seems very out there but it makes so much sense when you consider the economic benefits Holmes would gain from a pardon and we also know that Fielder as a film maker has no problem playing in the ethical grey zone with his work so this subterranean multi-level manipulation of the audience is an interesting experiment for him and A24.

Please don't downvote opinions. Only downvote comments that don't contribute anything. Check out the WHYBW archives.

Yeah, there’s certain aspects that fall flat in comparison to Tarkovsky’s masterpiece….but man, this is still a deeply rich film.

Initially, it seems like Soderbergh is mostly concerned with the tragedy of the central relationship (which I think he nails quite poignantly), but film is still philosophically, psychologically, and ethically rich.

The whole tension between real and apparition, and what constitutes being a human, I think film captured really well some of the core themes of the novel. It really does seem that Rheya is having a conscious experience…..does this make her real? And even though Rheya rejects this idea, and she seems to view herself as a memory, her reasons for why she doesn’t believe she is a human adds another interesting layer to this theme. And the entire ethics around killing the manifestation, the question of whether, it’s murder is shrouded in ambiguity.

And Chris’ inability to let her go, with the hope of resolving his guilt, to just watch another attempt at his relationship ultimately fail, was utterly brutal.

People seem to forget, or perhaps struggle to discern, that seemingly opposing things can be true simultaneously.

Fielder can genuinely empathize with and care about Holmes AND "use" Holmes to create a wildly successful work of art: this film.

Fielder can privately feel uncertain OR certain about what he experienced (and perhaps is still experiencing) with Holmes (they might even still be in touch) AND make artistic decisions that lead viewers toward seemingly definitive interpretations rather than ambiguous ones.

In other words, the question isn't necessarily whether something is true or false, but which version of reality is being presented, by whom, and through what lens.

In YCSE, a multitude of realities can coexist within a single work of art, each subject to the interpretation of the individual experiencing it.

Everyone is so focused on dissecting Holmes, Evans, Fielder. I get it. It's supremely fun and fascinating!

But even those with firsthand knowledge of Holmes's deception (Carreyrou and Shultz) have zeroed in on the seemingly endless elements of Holmes to dissect within YCSE, RATHER than the bigger story the film has the potential to tell:

We ALL have the capacity to "create our own reality," and then choose whether or not to act in alignment with that reality!

A film - documentary or otherwise - or, for that matter, virtually anything we experience in this world, can only ever offer a representation of A reality, not necessarily THE reality in its entirety.

Two people can look at the same cloud in the sky and see two entirely different animals...

Fielder and Holmes have both constructed their own "bespoke" amalgamations of reality, for vastly different purposes, sure.

But the fact remains that both have engaged in the same fundamental act of constructing and presenting a version of reality 🫠

And THAT, to me, is the brilliance of YCSE: "reality" being continuously constructed and reconstructed by its participants, through both preplanned and improvised actions; through the external (what visibly unfolds on screen) and the internal (the invisible workings, perceptions, motivations, and intentions of those involved); and both in "real time" and retrospectively (e.g., through post-production editing).

It's a collision of multiple, parallel realities, manifested as a single work of art.

Context is sooo necessary for perceiving a fuller picture of what we call "truth," isn't it? Think Plato's Allegory of the Cave...

Anyone who's watched Nathan for You and then The Rehearsal can recognize how YCSE feels like a natural progression of the themes Fielder has been exploring all along.

But the stars really did align for Fielder to cross paths with someone like Holmes: a person with a documented history of deception and an extraordinary ability to manipulate others' perceptions of reality, AND who can still exhibit moments that appear genuinely vulnerable and sincere. Her tears at mentioning her daughter's breastmilk saved in the fridge, for instance.

And Fielder isn't entirely different in that particular sense. In Nathan for You and The Rehearsal, he can be performing a character while simultaneously allowing moments of apparent, unscripted authenticity to emerge. It's that fascinating blend of scripted performance, improvisation, and spontaneous human interaction, all selectively preserved and assembled into the final product.

The distinction, of course, lies in their intentions, methods, consequences, and ethical responsibilities. Engaging in the same fundamental act of constructing a reality does not make the resulting realities, or the people constructing them, morally equivalent.

We can all "see" more clearly if we're willing to examine more of the elements at play in the realities we construct within ourselves.

Ultimately, for me, YCSE isn't even about Holmes, Evans, or Fielder so much as it is a portal through which we can examine just how much "truth" and "reality" we humans are capable of constructing, interpreting, and manipulating, for purposes ranging from harmless entertainment and artistic expression to something far more nefarious or malicious.

If you were one of the prisoners in Plato's cave, the first step would be to turn your head away from the shadows you've mistaken for the entirety of reality. Look around. Question the source of what you're seeing. Explore beyond the familiar. And perhaps, eventually, venture outside the cave itself.

Because what you see isn't necessarily all there is. And what you believe to be real isn't necessarily the whole truth.

We humans are not merely observers of reality. We are also participants in its construction.

And while we may not get to choose every circumstance or fact of our existence, we do have a hand in choosing how we perceive, interpret, and respond to what we encounter.

The choice to look beyond the shadows is ours.

I feel like some filmmakers believe that if a movie is long enough, has slow-motion shots, and includes 10 minutes of people staring into the distance, it automatically becomes a masterpiece.

Meanwhile, some 90-minute movies tell a complete story, develop memorable characters, and leave a bigger impact than films twice their length.

Movies like The Dark Knight, Whiplash, and The Truman Show prove that a film doesn't need to drag on to stay with you.

Long movies can absolutely be incredible. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a great example.

But runtime isn't a measure of storytelling quality.

If a scene doesn't add anything to the story, making it five minutes longer doesn't make it deep.

What's one movie you think could have been 30–60 minutes shorter without losing anything important? And which long movie deserves every single minute? 🎥

Past Lives was lovely for many reasons, great writing and performances, and I couldn’t help but really feel these actors faces and go through my own sappy emotions. The story is uncomplicated, I understand the immigrant element is in the forefront but for me you can experience a similar kind of identity loss moving someplace new as a kid, happened to me many times.

I was anticipating them getting back together and then when I knew it was already over the rest of the film was just heartbreaking, and when they’re walking with the husband and he feels awkward I was super uncomfortable for everyone.

Lovely movie, what do y’all think?

Edit: My goal is simply to point out the parallels between the two films and, hopefully, help us appreciate both of them even more. There’s no accusation of copying or ripping off here. I’m not sure why some people are getting defensive on behalf of the filmmakers over what was meant to be an appreciation of their work.
Cinema, like all other forms of art, is built on layers upon layers of inspiration, influence, and reinterpretation. We all stand on the shoulders of giants who came before us!

While watching You Can See Everything, I could not stop thinking about how much it mirrors Orson Welles’s F for Fake. As it turns out, I’m not the only one: at least a couple of film critics have pointed out the similarities since the film debuted, and honestly, if you watched this documentary and enjoyed it, you should absolutely seek out F for Fake to see what Fielder and Oppenheim seem to be building on. When Welles made F for Fake, he was documenting a famous faker and art forger, Elmyr de Hory, who is as interesting as Holmes, if not more! Welles was simultaneously making you question the very concept of what being fake or real means. He did this partly by hinting that he himself might be faking it and fooling you. The makers of You Can See Everything take that Wellesian move and refine it by making the filming, the filmmaker, and the act of reconstructing events part of the story too.

Similar Structure: A Documentary That Meditates on Itself
Both films turn the documentary back on itself, though F for Fake questions its own truth claims throughout, rather than only in its second half. Welles moves from examining forgers to examining cinema and its methods. Fielder does something similar, moving from examining Elizabeth Holmes to examining the act of documenting her. Things get more interesting by bringing actress/model Amanda Seyfried into the second half as a collaborator, mirroring how Welles brought actress/model Oja Kodar, his collaborator and co-writer, into F for Fake as his on-screen partner. She becomes part of the filmmaking process itself, which complicates who’s being observed and who’s doing the observing. That’s how both directors make the form inseparable from the argument about truth and deception.

Bragging About Past Fakery:
Both Welles and Fielder establish their credentials as deceivers while they examine deception. Welles keeps invoking his 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast, which was widely reported at the time as having tricked listeners into believing an alien invasion was underway. He references it multiple times throughout F for Fake and uses staged visualizations of the broadcast, along with material about its reported reception. He also hints, pretty directly, that maybe it wasn’t so inadvertent after all. Welles even gives us reason to question his own account after asking us to trust him. Fielder does something similar with Nathan for You. He points out directly to Holmes that he used to do an entire show about business scams and fakery, and now here he is documenting a real case of deception. Both are essentially saying the same thing: I have a documented track record of being able to construct reality and manipulate audiences.

Sympathy or Admiration for the Subject:
Welles does not hold back on expressing an intellectual admiration for de Hory’s audacity. He treats his subject as a fellow trickster and a fascinating specimen of deception, viewing his life as a masterful performance rather than a tragedy. This relationship is one of professional kinship, where Welles celebrates the skill of the illusionist rather than the plight of the man.

Similarly, in You Can See Everything, there’s a moment where Amanda asks Nathan if he cares enough about Liz to show her in a good light, and the film immediately cuts to footage of him genuinely enjoying time with her, swimming and actually connecting. It’s like he is pictorially confessing it right when the question is being asked. What was fascinating to me is that it mirrors something that happened in the last episode of Nathan for You, where Fielder seemed to get emotionally involved with one of the people in the story, an escort, and you could feel the line between performance and sincerity blurring. That is its own rabbit hole with lots of theories and speculations. By showing that emotional involvement with Liz in the swimming scene, he’s acknowledging that pattern. He’s admitting the bias while filming. Both directors are saying: Yes, I am invested, and here’s the evidence, and I’m showing it to you anyway.

The Magic Trick Link: What Makes a Faker a Faker?
To me this is the thematic core of both films. Welles actually performs a magic trick for a boy on camera in F for Fake, and it’s not a throwaway but his metaphor for how deception works. Fielder references the David Blaine ice-pick trick, suggesting that Blaine may actually have a hole in his hand, so part of the trick is real. He then tries to use that as an analogy for Holmes’s magic and how she deceived serious people like the four-star general "Mad Dog" Mattis or Larry Ellison. But the implication Fielder builds is that part of her magic might have been real, at least to her. She believed in the trick even as she was executing it.

Both films are asking the same essential question: How do you document the truth about someone whose entire existence is a performance, when the act of documenting is itself a performance? They answer by making the performance visible, the filmmaker complicit, and the magic trick the truest thing in the frame.

I watched the movie a couple of hours ago and I can't stop thinking about it. I think I might be going crazy because critics seem to gloss over the most important thing about it, which is religion. I haven't read the book, so I don't really care about inconsistencies.

Religion is a central focus of the movie. The Sun is literally in the title, and the official movie poster portrays Klara with the Sun forming a halo behind her head.

It's a solar religion in which the Sun is a god. Solar worship was common in many ancient pagan religions; it wasn't something stupid, as critics seem to suggest. Yes, Klara is childlike and powered by the Sun, which leads her to believe that the Sun is a god, but that was pretty much how it was with nature-based religions. People observed the power of nature and deified it. It isn't silly to portray someone as believing that the Sun is a person - not that long ago, people in many cultures were animists who thought that every part of nature had a separate soul.

One can even find parallels with Christianity - God in Christianity is not literally the Sun, but there are symbolic similarities. The halo has solar associations, the Sun is the source of light, and Jesus is also described as light in several passages of the Bible. I'm not sure whether this is intentional, but Klara may be seen as an example of the "child" archetype or the "holy fool" archetype - both children and "holy fools" are associated with closeness to God in Christian tradition. I don't think I even have to explain the parallels between Klara's selfless sacrifice and Jesus' sacrifice.

What's more, the movie added one element that supposedly isn't in the book - the combine harvester. In some ancient pagan religions, there was a conflict between uranic (including solar) deities and chthonic (earth) deities. The Sun in the movie is obviously the solar deity, but the combine seems to be a chthonic entity. Chthonic deities were associated with death, the earth and the harvest, all of which the combine seems to symbolize in the movie. I'm not sure whether this was intentional, but if it wasn't, then Waititi literally stumbled upon a symbol of nature worship, just like Klara.

I think Waititi went overboard with the humor, which made Klara seem "too stupid" for some viewers to even consider that she might be right. My problem is that the critics seem too entrenched in a scientific paradigm to even consider that, in a fantasy movie, the Sun might actually be a god.