For the next two months, every awards conversation about “You Can See Everything” will revolve around how no documentary has ever been nominated for Best Picture. Yet, since “You Can See Everything” is not a typical documentary in certain ways, typical documentaries may not be the most fitting comparison. As it stands, the only time something like “You Can See Everything” has factored into an Oscar season has been “Borat” and its sequel “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.” Given that both received significant Oscar nominations yet missed Best Picture, this is both encouraging and discouraging.
20 years ago, Sacha Baron Cohen took the half-documentary, half-mockumentary comedy hybrid to a new level, as his longtime comic creation Borat made real-life ordinary and famous people either very uncomfortable on camera or far too comfortable. 14 years later, Cohen did it again with a surprise sequel, an unexpected new co-star, and the most headline-making confrontations yet with some very infamous targets. Both movies culminated years of Cohen’s improbably real, unbelievably outrageous, envelope-pushing stunts on television and film, pushing the boundaries of the kind of comedy usually recognized by the Academy.
Nowadays, the new headliner on the documentary/mockumentary circuit is Nathan Fielder, whose longtime comic creation “Nathan Fielder” has similarly made real-life ordinary people either very uncomfortable with his highly detailed schemes and rehearsals, or far too comfortable. Now in the culmination of years of Fielder’s improbably real, unbelievably outrageous, envelope-pushing stunts on television, “You Can See Everything” – a surprise movie almost no one knew existed until its Telluride premiere, with an unexpected co-star and at least a half-dozen headline-making twists and turns – takes them to the big screen as Fielder embeds himself in the orbit of real-life disgraced billionaire turned convicted felon Elizabeth Holmes, even years after she is sent to prison.
If critics and audiences who powered it to a near-record-setting documentary opening have a say, “You Can See Everything” will be the next hybrid film to push the boundaries of what the Academy usually recognizes. But if the examples of “Borat” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” can provide any guidance, how much further can this hope to go during awards season?”
Of course, since “Borat” was never labeled a documentary despite its documentary elements, it never had the reminder that a documentary – hybrid or otherwise – has never been nominated for Best Picture. However, since the Academy still had a Best Picture field of five in 2006, “Borat” was always behind the eight-ball against films like “The Departed,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Queen,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Babel,” and any other more traditional films on the bubble. Yet if there had been ten slots in 2006 as there are now, there’s a case to be made that “Borat” could have snuck into the back of the field, especially with a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination to prove voters were watching.
Likewise, although “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” missed Best Picture in the expanded 2020 lineup, it was only in a field of eight. Perhaps a set field of ten could have snuck that “Borat” film in as well, although “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and “One Night in Miami” were most likely the number nine and ten films that year. But since both “One Night in Miami” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” were in the same boat with a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination and a supporting acting nomination, maybe they were closer for the number ten spot than we know.
If those two quasi-documentary comedies could get so close to the Academy in years with smaller fields, does that really give extra hope that “You Can See Everything” will take the next step into a Best Picture field of ten? After all, it too had an unusually high opening weekend for a documentary or mockumentary – if not on the level of “Borat’s” $26+ million opening and $128+ million domestic gross – as well as the kind of acclaim no “Borat” film, and maybe no film but a few in this entire decade has received. In that respect, with critics and online pundits ready to push “You Can See Everything” in a way they never did for any “Borat” film, it already has a leg up in potential passion.
The “Borat” movies had impact beyond laughs and stunts, as the original captured and amplified the prejudices of the Bush/War on Terror era, and the sequel did the same for the original Trump/COVID era, especially in its third act. “You Can See Everything” may not have such political undertones, though its questioning of objective reality is very much a “post-truth” Trump-era theme. However, will that be a big enough hook for voters to put it over overt “message” movies like “Artificial,” “All of a Sudden,” “Possible Love,” or “Fjord,” or more emotionally driven narrative films like “I Play Rocky” and “Elsinore” – especially while films like “NAZA” and “Once Upon a Time in Harlem” are challenging it in the Best Documentary Feature category as it is? Either way, since “You Can See Everything” isn’t eligible for as many categories as those movies, its path is much narrower. Although both “Borat” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” had an extremely limited number of categories they could have broken into themselves, they weren’t held back by documentary eligibility restrictions in the way “You Can See Everything” will be.
When Cohen played Borat, he fell short of an Oscar nomination both times, yet he won a Golden Globe both times. Because Fielder is playing a possibly exaggerated version of himself in a documentary, rather than a more clearly defined fictional character like Borat, he won’t be able to launch himself at the Globes or anywhere else in the same way. Likewise, although “Borat” was nominated for Best Musical or Comedy at the Globes in 2006 and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” won that category in 2020, “You Can See Everything” won’t be eligible there and can’t win anything except documentary prizes in any other pre-Oscars award shows, and will have to hope that prestigious critics awards like the NYFCC, LAFCA, NBR and NSFC are willing to give it historic recognition. Most crucially, “Borat” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” made their marks at the Oscars with screenplay nominations. But “You Can See Everything” cannot do that, no matter how much Fielder planned or rehearsed certain moments in advance. Without that possibility, “You Can See Everything” will need at least one significant nomination in a non-documentary category that no “Borat” film could get, although there are only so few it can even try for.
Right now, the most hopeful critics and pundits are ready to push “You Can See Everything” in categories both “Borat” films never had major pushes for, like Best Editing and even Best Director for Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. Since “Woodstock” and “Hoop Dreams” got Best Editing nominations decades ago, there is at least some precedent for “You Can See Everything” to get one there as well, though a documentary director or two getting nominated is another matter. However, a “Borat” film does offer a major precedent for another groundbreaking nomination that could put “You Can See Everything” over the top.
“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” did better than the original “Borat” at the Oscars with an acting nomination, not for Cohen, but for then-newcomer Maria Bakalova in Best Supporting Actress. Because of that, fans can argue that “You Can See Everything” could have its own unprecedented acting nomination – not for the ineligible Fielder, but for the special guest he brings in to help him. In fact, considering what may be a lack of options in Best Supporting Actress beyond two stars from “The Odyssey,” two Penélope Cruz performances (“The Invite” and “La Bola Negra“) and “All of a Sudden’s” Tao Okamoto, it isn’t outlandish that “You Can See Everything’s” guest could be its version of Bakalova if someone in the presumed top five falls out. And if enough voters really want “You Can See Everything” to make Best Picture, they would probably have to push her in too – and some would argue they already owe this particular guest star in a few ways. If “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” couldn’t crack Best Picture with a Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay nomination package, could “You Can See Everything” do it with Best Supporting Actress, Best Editing, and Best Documentary Feature nominations? If that’s still not enough, Best Director is probably the only other way to improve its resume – and at the least, the Next Best Picture team already has Fielder and Oppenheim at number 7 in their latest projections, on the heels of Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Denis Villeneuve.
For that reason and others, the best way to make a case for “You Can See Everything” is to compare it to the “Borat” franchise, rather than to the “normal” documentaries shut out of the Best Documentary Feature category. The “Borat” films got to go further because they were never labeled documentaries, and yet, in so many ways, “You Can See Everything” is the next step in that hybrid brand Cohen made history with 20 years ago, whether the Academy sees it that way or not.
The irony is especially palpable right now, with “You Can See Everything” making its historic mark just in time to drown out Cohen’s own comeback. While everyone is rushing to see the “Fielder method” of documentary/mockumentary comedy in theaters, Cohen is bringing his own approach back to theaters for one week with the return of Ali G in “Ali G: Who Iz I?” on October 23 before it goes onto Amazon Prime a week later. Yet with Fielder as the star of the moment right now, after “You Can See Everything” pushed multiple genres in ways even Cohen never tried, bringing Cohen back at this point may make him look outdated instead of groundbreaking.
That may be unfair, and not just on the off chance “Ali G: Who Iz I?” gets good reviews and an audience. Without Cohen paving the way with his own shows and films, there would probably be no Fielder, no “Nathan for You,” no “The Rehearsal,” and now no “You Can See Everything,” despite how wildly different their styles of comedy and interactions with the real world are. And without “Borat” and “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” there would be no path at the Oscars for “You Can See Everything” to point to and try to improve on, in order to show it isn’t just another comedic documentary.
Do you think “You Can See Everything” will receive a Best Picture nomination? What other nominations are you predicting it’ll receive? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account, and check out Next Best Picture’s latest Oscar predictions here.
