TV Pick of the Week: The Dropout - review by Yvette Huddleston

Convicted of defrauding investors in her once high-flying and lucrative blood-testing company Theranos in 2022, Holmes began an 11-year prison sentence in a Texas jail last year. In 2015 she was named by American business magazine Forbes as the youngest female self-made billionaire in the US when Theranos, the company she founded and ran, was valued to be worth 9 billion dollars. So what happened in the years in between – and how, and why, did it all go so wrong?

The mostly chronological narrative explores Holmes’ possible motivations and analyses the reasons behind her deceitful behaviour. Amanda Seyfried plays Holmes with great sensitivity and intelligence – it is an outstanding performance and won her an Emmy and a Golden Globe. The way in which she manages to elicit enough sympathy for an essentially corrupt, calculating character, is testament to her skill.

In the opening episode we see Holmes (Seyfried) being deposed pre-trial, looking pale and shocked, then flashback to her childhood, as an 11-year-old taking part in a track race where she is by far the slowest runner. All the other competitors have long finished the race, but she doesn’t give up. The device is a little clunky but it tells us all we need to know about Holmes’ determination and self-belief.

The family, who are wealthy and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, suffer a setback when Holmes’ father, a vice-president at disgraced energy company Enron, loses his job. The teenage Elizabeth tells him her aim is to get rich as quickly as possible – she is bright, intelligent and driven. She gets a place at Stamford (she never doubted she would) and is a diligent student. Instead of the usual freshman activities of partying and having fun, she lobbies to join a post-graduate research group and starts working on her own inventions. She also begins an affair with charismatic older man Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews) who was to become her business partner, then drops out of university to set up Theranos.

Holmes’ rapid descent into lies and corruption when things don’t quite go her way is eloquently portrayed and it all makes for totally compelling viewing. Plus there are top-quality supporting turns from the likes of Sam Waterson, Stephen Fry, Laurie Metcalf and William H Macy.