The tech backlash is now in theaters

Even though some of these movies are fictionalized dramas, each of them draws from the wealth of critical reporting that has revealed their subjects to be less-than-savory characters. You get the sense that these filmmakers are trying to tell stories that are meant to resonate with audiences whose views of Big Tech have long since begun to dim. But it also feels like some of Hollywood’s biggest studios are finally embracing the idea that the tech backlash isn’t letting up anytime soon.

Especially when you compare them to classics like The Social Network, the latest wave of cinematic dramas based on Silicon Valley power struggles has been far less sympathetic to their central figures. David Fincher’s 2010 film starring Jesse Eisenberg presented Zuckerberg as a complicated and misunderstood savant, but The Social Reckoning builds its story around the idea that the Facebook / Meta head is a man whose obsession with growth poses an existential threat to democracy. By focusing on the allegations leveled by whistleblower Frances Haugen, the movie is able to highlight Zuckerberg’s public transformation into a powerful executive who wields autocratic control over a multibillion-dollar social media empire.

What The Social Reckoning lacks in timeliness (The Wall Street Journal began reporting Haugen’s warnings in 2021) and stylistic flair, it makes up for in the way it connects Facebook / Meta’s past internal decisions to events that are still playing out in real time. The movie’s scenes that dig into Instagram’s negative impacts on teens’ mental health and the relationship between Facebook’s algorithm and the spread of misinformation feel as if they’re speaking directly to present-day concerns about how much influence Meta has over people’s lives. Similarly, Gibney’s Musk documentary acts as both a chronicle of the xAI / SpaceX head’s past and an inquiry into why the public was ever willing to let Musk accrue so much power within governments across the world.

Though the Meta subsidiaries and YouTube ultimately reversed their decisions, TikTok has stuck to its guns — which feels notable given the company’s indirect connections to the Trump administration by way of Skydance Corporation CEO David Ellison. David’s father — Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison — is a longtime Donald Trump supporter and one of the American billionaires who led the consortium of investors that purchased TikTok’s US business late last year. Ellison has reportedly promised Gibney that Musk will air on HBO (now a part of Skydance) sometime next January. The film is currently screening in select theaters, but it is hard to argue that it hasn’t had to deal with an unusual amount of outside interference in the weeks leading up to its release.

Guadagnino’s Artificial — which was originally going to be released by Amazon — also faced unexpected marketing challenges this year. The streaming giant backed out of its deal to distribute the film this past June, just months after announcing that it was investing $50 billion in OpenAI. All of that made it seem very much like Amazon and other studios financially involved with AI companies might be cooling on the idea of releasing projects critical of the technology’s creators. Now that Artificial has begun screening and people have a sense of how it takes Altman to task, it’s easy to see why Amazon didn’t want to have its name attached. More than anything else, that decision may be what convinces people to see Artificial in theaters when it releases widely on December 25th, and OpenAI’s impending IPO could make the movie’s messages about Altman feel that much more relevant.

What sets Fielder’s You Can See Everything apart from each of these other recent tech films is how direct a view it gives you into the actual life of its subject. The documentary’s production began well after Holmes had already been sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, and Fielder uses his access to grill her about why she doesn’t believe that she defrauded Theranos investors. Invited to live with Holmes and her partner William Evans in a rental home during the month before she was set to begin her sentence, Fielder allows himself to become a character who can’t entirely tell whether his hosts’ supposed wish for radical transparency is genuine.

That central tension turns You Can See Everything into a surprisingly fascinating watch that challenges you to consider who’s actually in control of the documentary. Throughout the movie, Fielder repeatedly wonders if Holmes is using him as part of her recent PR campaign, and he leaves the audience to draw their own conclusions.

It often feels like Fielder is asking viewers to really listen to how Holmes presents herself on camera and then reconcile that person with what you might have read about Holmes in the news or seen in Hulu’s The Dropout. Whether or not Holmes is really just a committed performer who’s trying to manipulate the public shapes every beat of the film, and it makes You Can See Everything feel like a truly in-depth and honest examination of one of Silicon Valley’s most infamous figures — one who’s already captured so much of the public’s attention.