It's a realistic look at Theranos, a technology company that has caused a lot of fuss around the world, especially with billions of dollars. Its founder was Elizabeth Holmes, the youngest billionaire of self-serving women, but the company suffered a major collapse later. Perhaps the cause of the massive collapse was fraud and fraud that destroyed everything.
Critics Of "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley"
New York Magazine/Vulture
March 19, 2019
Perhaps a ten-hour-long, O.J.: Made in America-style docuseries could satisfyingly address the systematic, cultural context of Elizabeth Holmes; that's not this film by a long shot.
The Inventor is a fascinating look at a person who lives by the George Costanza mantra "It's not a lie if you believe it." Only this isn't Monk's Diner, and the stakes couldn't have been higher.
Like a lot of Gibney documentaries, it compresses a juicy, complicated story into a smooth, coherent retelling that occasionally glances at that story's deeper implications.
In his penetrating new HBO documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, the Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney weighs Holmes' alleged fraud in the context of the fantasyland that is Silicon Valley.
Gibney finds himself unable to show why Holmes was such a compelling figure. Instead, the viewer is lost in an endless maze of dry re-enactments and footage from Theranos promos and interviews.
Like most any Alex Gibney film, this one is sleek, well-produced, focused and journalistic. But The Inventor, given the Gibney-perfect subject, is a little surprising in its softness. As competent as it is, the film just doesn't bite very hard.
