TV review: Compelling real-life story The Dropout should make for good telly — but doesn't
The Dropout is the story of Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried) and Theranos is an unbelievable tale of ambition and fame gone terribly wrong. How did the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire lose it all in the blink of an eye? Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews) and Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried). Pictures: Beth Dubber/Hulu
It might be time to call time on swindler shows for a while. and are both well worth a watch on Netflix, but is on Disney Plus now and I found it hard not to drop out.
That should make for good telly. It doesn’t. Amanda Seyfried is convincing as Holmes, full of intensity, rage, ambition and social awkwardness. Her relationship with the older Sunny Bulwani feels about right. The subtext that she has to try harder because she’s a woman isn’t over-played. But it’s all just a bit meh.
The real problem here is that it doesn’t tell us anything new. Yes, Holmes is sloppy with the truth when she is trying to bring in investors, but you’d imagine that’s the case for most start-ups. This is explicitly pointed out in a scene where Holmes goes for a posh boat ride with Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, and Ellison tells her that ‘the software was a mess’ when they were demonstrating it in the early stages. This posh boat scene was ok, but had none of the verve you’d get from Leonardo DiCaprio in .
is po-faced in comparison, as if it didn’t want to appear flippant when dealing with a something that could change the path of medical history. We get inside Holmes’ relationship with her parents, but unfortunately that seems loving and supportive, which doesn’t exactly make for decent drama.
I’m sure the producers will tell us that they clung close to the real story, but the real story is just further proof that older men take notice when a pretty young woman promises to make them a fortune. That isn’t enough to make a hit.
