Amanda Seyfried Is Scary Good in The Dropout

For a time it was impossible to ignore Elizabeth Holmes. Her story was irresistible. Driven by her ambition to launch a company and become the next Steve Jobs, she became at 19 a billionaire. The company she birthed, Theranos, attracted a who’s who list of investors willing to put up millions to support her dream. She began to dress like Jobs, her all black wardrobe favoring turtlenecks, jackets, and slacks. To avoid being cast as a whiny, hysterical female, she lowered her voice and perfected her stare. Her blood red lipstick evoked the image of the company and made a statement. She was scary and good.

Amanda Seyfried nails Holmes in the Hulu series, The Dropout. The eight episodes take us through Holmes’ brief time at Stanford, which included an exchange program in Beijing where she attempted to perfect her Mandarin, her friendship and then romance with the older and more experienced Sunny Balwani (a brilliant Naveen Andrews), and then the ups and downs of creating and running Theranos.

Sam Waterston as George Shultz (Photo by: Beth Dubber/Hulu)

Holmes’ concept for a company hit on something we all hate – giving blood. Even those who don’t have a phobia about needles often wonder why so many tubes have to be filled to run diagnostic tests. Holmes’ solution, a simple finger prick producing just a drop of blood to conduct those tests, was a godsend. (How many parents holding a screaming child welcomed that idea with open arms?) Her company gained traction not because her idea worked (it didn’t), but because we wanted it to work. Imagine the returns with Theranos’ technology burying other diagnostic test companies! No wonder investors stormed the gates to put down huge amounts of money.

Holmes, not a scientist, got ahead of herself. She never saw it as her job to handle the science. She tasked that out to others. Her forte was promoting the company and bringing in the money. And she was very good at that. Those she snared in her net included George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Rupert Murdoch, and the venture capitalist Don Lucas.

William H. Macy as Richard Fuisz (Photo by: Beth Dubber/Hulu)

Seyfried is adept capturing Holmes’ metamorphosis from a geeky, plain college student to the confident, polished entrepreneur. Not everyone, however, is taken in. Family friend, Richard Fuisz, a physician and inventor with connections to the intelligence and military communities, is at first miffed that Elizabeth doesn’t consult him about her company, but then files suit against Theranos, alleging patent infringement. William H. Macy plays Fuisz with gusto, at times his performance bordering on camp. Another detractor is Phyllis Gardner (Laurie Metcalf) one of Holmes’ professors who early on labels the young woman as a fraud. Ian Gibbons (Stephen Fry), a scientist hired by Holmes, is badly treated and later dies by suicide. His wife, Rochelle (Kate Burton), joins with those attempting to bring Holmes and Theranos down.

Theranos grows by leaps and bounds, occupying impressive headquarters in Silicon Valley. But the building becomes a fortress as Holmes and Balwani, who signs on as COO, struggle to prevent leaks. NDAs become commonplace and are used as a weapon to prevent any current or former employees from revealing what’s really happening inside the company. 

Dylan Minnette as Tyler Shultz and Camryn Mi-young Kim as Erika Cheung (Photo by: Michael Desmond/Hulu)

One of Holmes’ most ardent supporters is Shultz, played with appropriate bluster by Sam Waterston. In his 90s, and no longer a confidant to presidents, he’s relishing his role as Holmes’ investor and mentor. When his grandson, Tyler (Dylan Minnette), expresses an interest in working at Theranos, Elizabeth hires him. But it doesn’t take long for Tyler, and one of his co-workers, Erika Cheung (Camryn Mi-young Kim), to realize that Theranos is a scam. Cheung discovers the tests are not being run on Theranos’ Edison machines, but on those manufactured by the diagnostic company, Siemens. Tyler and Erika understand the seriousness of what’s happening. The Edison machines that are being used at Walgreens are spewing out inaccurate test results that could damage lives or even result in deaths. But when Tyler and Erika take their suspicions to Shultz, encouraging him to confront Holmes, he refuses. 

By now, reporters are sniffing around, Theranos’ secrecy raising red flags. Fuisz contacts Wall Street Journal Reporter John Carreyrou (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) who begins to dig. He interviews doctors in Arizona who say the lives of several patients have been placed in jeopardy because of Theranos’ tests. While Carreyrou amasses information on background, getting anyone, besides Fuisz, to talk on the record is tough because of all those pesky NDAs and threats of lawsuits. (Several of the doctors Carreyrou interviews back out after Balwani threatens to inundate them with bad online reviews.) There are several tense scenes with employees who live in fear of their lives, worried about being sued or, worse yet, harmed if they talk.

Tyler soon has a target on his back and his grandfather does nothing to protect him. When Theranos’ corporate in-house attorney Linda Tanner (Michaela Watkins), shows up at the Shultz home with papers for Tyler to sign, including a restraining order, the young man is distraught. Not signing means he will, as she tells him, “be buried in legal fees.” Shultz asks Tyler whether he has spoken to the Journal and he says no. His grandmother Charlotte (Anne Archer) doesn’t believe him, but puts in a call to their lawyer who advises Tyler not to sign. (Tyler’s relationship with his grandfather, according to a long Carreyrou interview in the WSJ, never recovered. Shultz died on February 6, 2021.)

Ebon Moss-Bachrach as John Carreyrou (Photo by: Beth Dubber/Hulu)

Carreyrou’s stories help to bring the company down. (His book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, was published in 2018 by Knopf.) Moss-Bachrach appears as the poster child for any reporter who has put everything on the line to go after a story. The scenes with his editor, Judith Baker (LisaGay Hamilton), are priceless. After the Journal runs an op-ed by Holmes extolling the virtue of diagnostic tests and her company, Carreyrou is outraged and pushes Baker to run his story. She tells him it’s not ready and uses an analogy of Sicilian fisherman who wait quietly in knee-deep water for the fish to gather before they attack. Theranos’ law team, headed by attorney, David Boies (Kurtwood Smith), meet with Carreyrou and Baker, hoping to kill the story. Instead, they provide the “bam,” the fish strike, Carreyrou needs to tie everything together.

Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes and Naveen Andrews as Sunny Balwani (Photo by: Beth Dubber/Hulu)

Holmes receives word that the story is live while she’s in Cambridge celebrating being named to the Harvard Medical School’s Board of Fellows. While the article’s allegations are devastating, Holmes is undeterred. Holmes and Balwani (Seyfried and Andrews) lead a rally at Theranos headquarters where employees join in with a chant against Carreyrou. At this point Theranos isn’t a corporation, but a cult, its followers having swallowed Holmes’ Kool-Aid.

On January 3, 2022, Holmes was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors – three counts of wire fraud, and one of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She’s free on bail awaiting sentencing and could serve as much as 20 years in prison. (Balwani is now on trial.) Seyfried has expressed interest in a season two that would follow Holmes through the dissolution of Theranos and her trial. We vote for a green light on that project. 

The Dropout can be streamed on Hulu.

Top: Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes (Photo by Beth Dubber/Hulu)