The Dropout
Finally, someone has the courage to say it. Laurie Metcalf, as Dr Phyllis Gardner in The Dropout (BBC1), debunked Yoda, the little green alien who cannot his words in the right order get.
‘Science is real,’ Gardner fumed to 19-year-old student entrepreneur and Star Wars geek Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried). ‘Yoda is a fictional green character who apparently knows everything in the universe except for syntax and grammar.’
This tirade failed to dishearten Holmes, whose one ambition was to become a billionaire by devising some world-changing invention. The fact that nothing she invented actually worked didn’t dishearten her either — and certainly didn’t stop her from fraudulently raising hundreds of millions of dollars from gullible investors for her fake one-drop-of-blood miracle diagnostic device.
The Dropout, a series that first aired on Disney+ in 2022, is a corporate true-crime story that can’t decide whether to glorify or demonise Holmes, the former poster girl for Silicon Valley, whose fall from grace was spectacular.
She’s a unique figure, who overcame childhood bullying and shyness to become a self-made CEO of a Californian tech company.
The Dropout is a corporate true-crime story that tells the story of Elizabeth Holmes(played by Amanda Seyfried), the former poster girl for Silicon Valley, whose fall from grace was spectacular
She’s female, she’s blonde, and she loves to party. The fact she sold a product that exploited the hopes of countless patients and doctors is obviously a bad thing, but we all make mistakes
She’s female, she’s blonde, and she loves to party. She’s Disney’s ideal woman. The fact she sold a product that exploited the hopes of countless patients and doctors is obviously a bad thing… but come on, we all make mistakes.
America has a weakness for charismatic billionaires, however suspect their products. The Social Network, starring Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, won a Golden Globe, despite a tendency for social media to undermine democracy.
Elon Musk’s rockets explode (or undergo ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’) and his Tesla cars do occasionally burst into flames, but it can only be a matter of time before he’s the subject of an adoring Hollywood biopic, too.
Seyfried makes Holmes attractive by constantly displaying her vulnerability. She finds it difficult to make friends and can only truly relax when she’s alone, dancing like a maniac to Noughties rap and pop on her iPod. The actress has the face of an eternal teenager, able even in her mid-30s to portray Holmes from 17 onwards.
The Dropout, a series that first aired on Disney+ in 2022,is now available to watch on BBC
She doesn’t have to carry the show alone: William H. Macy is the family friend who mistrusts her from the start, with Lost’s Naveen Andrews as her co-conspirator and lover. Stephen Fry plays her chief scientist — his beard growing and retreating from one scene to another.
The Beeb served up a double bill for starters, probably because the first was a bit of a plod. Spelling out what drove Holmes to success, it was apt to get bogged down in her teenage setbacks.
But the pace picked up with more comic moments. It culminated in a manic pitch for investment on Larry Ellison’s yacht, giving a madly macho cameo to Die Hard’s Hart Bochner as the maverick computer software multi-billionaire.
‘Have you fired anyone yet?’ he screamed. ‘That’s what it takes to be a CEO!’ Wannabe billionaires, take note.