Developed by Elizabeth Meriwether, who also created New Girl, The Dropout tells the stranger than fiction story of Elizabeth Holmes, who was found provably guilty of committing fraud through the claims of her billion-dollar health technology company, Theranos. This miniseries covers the entire rise and fall of Holmes’ story, based on the ABC podcast of the same name. The finale of The Dropout aired on Hulu on April 7th, 2022.
Elizabeth Holmes dreams of becoming a billionaire from a young age. In fact, it’s all that’s on her mind even as she enters college, going into biomedical engineering. She soon comes up with an idea that will revolutionize the blood-testing industry and drops out of Stanford to start her company, Theranos. But things change as Holmes comes up against more and more problems with being a young female CEO, and since her technology always seems just out of reach, she gets help from an old close friend to turn Theranos into a billion-dollar company without ever producing the functioning product she promised years before.
Amanda Seyfried - Elizabeth Holmes
Naveen Andrews - Sunny Balwani
Michel Gill - Chris Holmes
Elizabeth Marvel - Noel Holmes
Stephen Fry - Ian Gibbons
Bill Irwin - Channing Robertson
Utkarsh Ambudkar - Rakesh Madhava
James Hiroyuki Liao - Edmond Ku
William H. Macy - Richard Fuisz
Laurie Metcalf - Phyllis Gardner
Amanda Seyfried’s performance as Holmes is the obvious draw for this docudrama - even though Hulu first cast Kate McKinnon in the role, Seyfried channels McKinnon’s trademark oddity to play Holmes in her most transformative role yet. The uneven pacing of the eight-episode series does not quite match Seyfried's intensity, but the show effectively uses a range of focus on a well-chosen, recognizable ensemble cast. The final criticism is that the show does not have the signature humor of Meriwether’s usual writing, even with a few attempts at straight-faced dark humor. The true story of The Dropout overall propels the proceedings and overcomes the flaws; with only a couple of lulls, most people will have no trouble getting to the end. Seeing Holmes’ combination of in-over-her-head ambition and CEO manipulation tactics performed by Seyfried and company makes for a captivatingly good time.
Rating: 7/10
★★★★★★★☆☆☆
Watch all of The Dropout on Hulu now!