The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

HKFanatic

Alex Gibney's style of documentary filmmaking often registers as distracting and over-produced, but I find this story so compelling - the dark side of Silicon Valley's "disruptor" mentality - and Elizabeth Holmes such an enigmatic figure, I was riveted the whole way through. The CG recreation of a technician sticking their hand in a malfunctioning, Hepatitis-filled blood box is more disturbing than any horror film.

lndah

Hello millions of self-help books and dropout stories, the obsession of instant fame and secrecy of "fake-it-until-you-make-it" laboratory and culture, look at your holy daughter in action here, she had stretched your super optimistic POV too far.. (or wait maybe we're too quick to penalize her? nonetheless, I'm still thrilled by the idea of Theranos) PS: "Honorary horseshit" is such a good term

Filipe F. Coutinho

Gibney's greatest strength as a documentarian is how he frames his narratives in historical context, allowing us to understand that what we’re seeing isn’t new. It speaks to a certain collective naïveté when facing the promise of progress, an antsy desire to ‘get there’ no matter the cost. The problem with Holmes’ ambitions was what was at stake: individual and collective health. A fine doc, Gibney in second gear.

MATTEO BITTANTI

Elizabeth Holmes is the quintessential byproduct of Silicon Valley: a psychopath with no empathy for anybody. Just like her idol, Steve Jobs - the subject of another (way more insightful) documentary by Gibney - Holmes embodies everything that is morally corrupt and rotten about the paloaltification of the world. A truly terrifying evangelist of a truly terrifying ideology.

ig_____or

Entertaining, but as an avid follower of this fascinating story I thought that the documentary didn't quite bring something new to the table... and ticking at 2-hours, I sort of expected it did.

Myles

Reductive storytelling that rarely cuts to the answers we need. Who actually knew what when? How did it go on so long? What other privately held companies sustain themselves on fictional premises? There are some well executed bits of irony, but none of it would have been possible without the Errol Morris footage.

BLP

I had been anticipating this one for a while because the story of this Steve Jobs wannabe sounded so interesting, but the documentary is so god damn insipid. I wanted to know more about Elizabeth Holmes and her machiavellian doings but instead I got this cookie-cutter, general overview of what happened. The Inventor is a highly disappointing and fairly tedious affair.

Loz Loory

Gibney does a good job of tracking the basic event timeline, but he doesn't seem interested in going too deep into the psychology behind what happened. It's not enough to say Holmes was a zealot. There's much more at play in her grandiosity. Wish Errol Morris were at all the interviews to ask more incisive questions. Wish there were more reflective material at the end. The Schultz family involvement was interesting.