Nathan Fielder’s Secret Elizabeth Holmes Film Became Telluride’s Biggest Mystery

Several months ago, Nathan Fielder’s publicist sent me an unexpected email.

Before I knew why, I had already said yes. Fielder was preparing to release a top-secret project, which meant signing a non-disclosure agreement. I signed, listened, and watched the film alongside dozens of other people at a private screening before its surprise release as a secret addition to the Telluride Film Festival in early September.

Nathan Fielder’s Telluride surprise created an online frenzy

If you have access to the internet, you know that the post-Telluride buzz was nothing short of an online thermonuclear event. Reddit forums exploded, and best-in-class memes appeared overnight. Journalists everywhere—including the WIRED staff, who did not know their bosses were under non-disclosure agreements and seemed confused by my repeated commands not to contact Nathan Fielder’s publicist—begged for access to the movie or, even better, to Fielder himself.

After all, this notoriously enigmatic performer has built a cult following by transforming human discomfort into high art. He built a coffee shop called Dumb Starbucks, sparking an international news event. He built an entire fake bar so one man could practice difficult conversations with his friends. He trained to be a commercial airline pilot and flew a 737 full of passengers in Miracle of the Mojave. For certain viewers, Nathan Fielder is a comedy god among mere mortals.

The high-stakes effort to put Nathan Fielder on the WIRED cover

Naturally, Fielder is selective. He was scheduled to appear on the cover of WIRED. Then maybe he wasn’t. A week passed. The features director and I couldn’t sleep. So we went for it. Wonderful—at least for a few days, before things became dangerous again.

This kind of uncertainty is normal in celebrity bookings. But the stakes were especially high for WIRED, given the secrecy surrounding the project, the growing buzz, and Nathan Fielder himself. I told several people in my life that I hated Nathan Fielder. Then we started again. I told several people in my life that I loved Nathan Fielder.

You may be wondering: If the pre-interview excitement was so stressful, why not scrap the cover entirely? We could have checked whether Aaron Sorkin was still available or found someone else involved in a tech-related fall movie. There are many options.

A strange and unforgettable film about Elizabeth Holmes

The problem is that this is a very surprising movie. I would go so far as to say it is one of the best things I have ever seen. Co-directed by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the film begins as a bizarre, fascinating, and often hilarious 34-day psychological dance between Fielder and Lance Oppenheim.

Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans appear before Holmes is imprisoned. The film then transforms into something so fascinating and wonderful that describing it in detail would miss the point.

After the screening in early September, I thought about the movie every day until I saw it again a few weeks later. It is still spinning around in my head. When a small group of WIRED staff members screened the film before Fielder’s cover shoot, we spent hours discussing facial expressions, relationships, and even the meaning of a single sentence.

There was little we agreed on beyond this: Fielder, famous for his meticulous world-building, seemed to have stumbled upon a world much stranger than anything he could have created himself.