- Network: HBO
- Series Premiere Date: Mar 18, 2019
Critic Reviews
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In his fervor to sell you on this story and to keep you interested, some filmmaking techniques tend toward corny, like his opening voiceover telling you that this is “a compelling story,” or tacky graphics that get in your face, like a pair of dice being thrown to illustrate a metaphor. And as for the curiosity, sometimes it leads on tangents, taking away from the tightness. ... But when “The Inventor” is running through the small downfall of Theranos, the whistleblowers and Holmes’ own detachment from reality, the documentary can be fascinating.
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While The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley is another of its director’s lucid and ruthlessly straightforward forensic analyses, the film fails to engage with many of the fascinating questions it raises along the way.
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In two hours, Gibney does an efficient job of recapping the rise of Theranos to a $10 billion valuation and its epic fall. ... But Gibney never quite connects the dots between Holmes and the factors that facilitated her rise.
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The Inventor ultimately can’t decide if it’s about the specific, contained absurdities of the Theranos scam, or the phenomenology of scams like Theranos. There’s certainly plenty of material to pore over on the former, but any attempts to go bigger-picture feel surface-level and abbreviated. ... But when Gibney stops to savor some of the specifics, the film is at its best.
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Gibney can’t decide if Holmes is a crook or just overdosed on her own ego. Mostly, he fills time with scene after scene of her posing at photo shoots while she waxes on about extending lifespans, or he gets loopy with voiceover.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 14
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Mixed: 2 out of 14
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Negative: 2 out of 14
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Mar 26, 2019While it's definitely an interesting story, there just wasn't enough content to justify the 2hr run time. One hour would have been pushing it IMO.