Contact Sport: How Much Eye Contact Is Too much?

You Can See Everything, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s bewildering new Elizabeth Holmes documentary, had its surprise world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on September 6. But it was the film’s first teaser trailer, released the same day, that got the wider public talking. In it, Fielder and the disgraced biotech entrepreneur—then just weeks away from entering prison for fraud—are seen in a beach house, seated very close together.

“I can promise you that. I don’t have anything to deceive you on. Of course I’m not deceiving you,” Holmes says. “I’m engaging with you as a human being. Why would I deceive you? There’s no reason for me to do that.”

“Okay. Alright. Okay, good chat,” comes Fielder’s reply. Then, after a few beats: “You’re being real right now?”

“I’m always being real,” Holmes says.

All the while, the two are engaged in a staring contest like two territorial bald eagles locked in a death spiral. The clip, which runs just over a minute, has racked up 8.5 million views.

Watching the teaser for the first time, I was among the many people who simply couldn’t get past their penetrating gazes. I grew up going to Texas cotillion, where I was taught that good eye contact was an important part of Southern charm. Yet what I witnessed in that scene was almost aggressively unpleasant.

So, what was the difference? The answer, according to etiquette expert and author Elaine Swann, was a matter of duration, in part. “The golden rule I share with my clients when it comes to eye contact is to always use it in moderation,” she says. “Look at the person, but don’t stare too deeply, because then you can come off as creepy. But don’t look away for too long, because you may be perceived as elusive.”

Like most social signals, the conventions around eye contact have evolutionary underpinnings. Research has shown that mutual eye contact can trigger everything from an elevated heartbeat to arousal—but if it goes on for too long (that is, beyond 3.2 seconds, per a 2015 study), the contact shifts from being engaging to potentially threatening, and suggesting a fight for dominance.

“If a person holds eye contact without breaking it for an uncomfortable amount of time, it might reveal a couple of things,” Swann says. “They might lack social awareness and not recognize that their long gaze is impacting someone negatively.” At other times, however, “they may be intentionally using that long stare to intimidate an individual or assert power over them.”

A central question of Fielder and Oppenheim’s film is whether Holmes is really as guileless as she seems, or in fact a master manipulator. On one hand, the project at large leaves that call to the viewer. On the other, perhaps the very first teaser tells you everything you need to know.

Have a beauty or wellness trend you're curious about? We want to know! Send Vogue's senior beauty & wellness editor an email at beauty@vogue.com.