The Dropout: Binge, Fringe, or Singe?
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Binge, Fringe, or Singe? is our television series that will cover the latest seasons, miniseries, and more. Binge is our recommendation to marathon the reviewed season. Fringe means it won’t be everyone’s favourite show, but is worth a try (maybe there are issues with it). Singe means to avoid the reviewed series at all costs.
By now, Elizabeth Holmes and her fraudulence surrounding her homegrown company, Theranos, is known by pretty much everyone. She was just found guilty on four different counts of fraud this January; she is awaiting her sentencing presently. While we’re all waiting to see what is to become of one of the biggest entrepreneurial schemers of our time, there have been a number of different retellings of this unfortunate tale, ranging from podcasts to documentary specials. Then there is the Hulu original miniseries The Dropout: an eight part deconstruction — via heightened literary drama — of Holmes’ rise and catastrophe of a fall. Holmes is played by Amanda Seyfried in what is easily a highlight of her already-strong resume, particularly because of her balancing act between the Holmes we know (deeply voiced, emotionless, with a stare that could cut through glass) and the person we never had a chance to meet (someone who did everything, good and bad, to be the next big CEO).
Much of the miniseries can be learned about in the other forms of media that have covered the Theranos story, but this show helps provide a grippingly personal account (despite the fact that these are not recounts from Holmes herself). We see Holmes be discouraged — like many young thinkers — by her elders and peers until she meets Sunny Balwani: a businessman nearly twenty years her senior, who she will eventually become romantically linked with. She had a vision: a device that can scan and analyze ailments and other information from the smallest blood samples possible. These prototypes — particularly the now-infamous Edison — didn’t work properly, and they would often misread blood and provide the wrong results. And yet she and Belwani kept leading Theranos, its board members, its investors, and users down a rabbit hole of deception, danger, and lies. The Dropout covers all of that in a digestible format. Despite being named after her status as a student, I feel like an even more fitting title (or a secondary one, anyway) would be The Fallout, because we sure see the many woes of working for a corrupt, disorganized, unlawful company (including the destroyed lives of those that just wanted to work in this field).
Amanda Seyfried turns in some of her best work as Elizabeth Holmes in The Dropout.
One of the main reasons I found to watch The Dropout is that this is some of the only human element you may find associated with this story. Holmes herself is a vault that doesn’t open up to anyone, especially not in front of a camera. Here, we see some life breathed into a cold and heartless case: a dreamer who blindly ignored the casualties (yes, literally some deaths occurred) and monstrosities she caused because she wanted to be the next Steve Jobs. There is a brief look at how Holmes may have felt (again, this is an interpretation) in the literal final minutes of The Dropout: a minor burst of release amidst some of the most stressful hours a failing CEO — responsible for so much destruction and ruin — may be feeling. I don’t think The Dropout makes you feel the need to feel sorry for Holmes as much as it opens your eyes to the other people around her that got hurt the most, particularly the workers that were grossly mistreated, and those that were burned by Theranos.
While I think The Dropout is good, it could have been even better with some focuses on some additional parts of the story: the trials that would come after, some more focusing on the lives hit by the shrapnel around her (we see some, but I’d have liked an even deeper dive to humanize these people outside of just the Elizabeth Holmes story), and maybe some more focus on the tech side and why the Edison (and other prototypes) weren’t working necessarily. Otherwise The Dropout is worth a binge watch if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s just under eight hours, it has some snappy dialogue and industry-based tension (Aaron Sorkin would be so proud), and it is a playground for the bombastic performances of Seyfried and Naveen Andrews (the latter played Sunny Balwani, and he is frighteningly good in this role). These elements — the interesting writing and the strong acting that makes it come to fruition — often overshadow the rest of the series (which is still strong enough), and it is these strengths that will likely shine come Emmy season. I’m not sure if The Dropout will have a legacy as cemented as the notoriety of its subject matter, but it will certainly be a miniseries I think a lot of people will still be interested in by the end of the year; there’s enough staying power here that helps The Dropout surpass just being a limited series about a real crime.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from X University (formerly known as Ryerson), as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.