THE HYUNDAI INCIDENT
“Shine” is what viewers identify blasting from Nathan's Hyundai Elantra in the stretch before Holmes reports to prison. In a post-screening Reddit thread, viewers immediately named the song and laughed at the choice. It isn't a random rumor about the soundtrack; it's a specific scene people can't stop discussing.
The title was not invented for this movie. Collective Soul's own label says the album name nodded to Paul Simon's “You Can Call Me Al.” That it now sounds like a ready-made tagline for a film about Theranos, certainty, and evasions is pure coincidence. It's also almost too good.
THE MOST EARNEST RIFF OF THE NINETIES
“Shine” was a breakthrough hit whose great big plea for reassurance never even pretended to be cool. Ed Roland says he developed its droning guitar riff while experimenting with chords, then finished the song with his brother. The band's label, Craft Recordings, says the original recordings were demos and Roland was initially seeking a songwriting deal.
That sincerity is what makes the car scene so strange. There is something both funny and unnerving about a song that sounds convinced everything will work out, playing as the facts on the ground become impossible to wish away.
ACTUAL INSIGHT FROM FIELDER
In an October 19 WIRED interview, Fielder said the crew would share the same room and the same experience, then come away with radically different explanations of what happened. He calls that disagreement a central premise of the film. He doesn't offer a definitive reading of the people on camera, let alone a song-by-song explanation.
That gives the Collective Soul moment an interesting frame, though not an official answer: the song is an earnest emotional certainty imposed on a situation in which Fielder can't be certain of much. It could be a joke, a private affection, or both.
WAIT. AYN RAND?
One more coincidence: Ed Roland says he borrowed the name Collective Soul after reading Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, inspired by a reference to a collection of souls. Yes, the name of the band supplying a 1990s uplift anthem to a film about a Silicon Valley fraudster came from Ayn Rand.
There's no evidence Fielder or co-director Lance Oppenheim intended an Objectivist Easter egg. The coincidences are funny enough without turning them into a conspiracy.
DID THE MOVIE MAKE “SHINE” A HIT AGAIN?
Not that we can establish as of October 20. Kworb's Spotify snapshot recorded 209,744 daily streams for “Shine” on October 9, before release; a more recent 1990s-songs tracking listing shows about 192,000. They are imperfect comparison points, not a complete daily time series, but they certainly aren't evidence of a post-release explosion.
So why Collective Soul? Nobody outside the filmmakers has verified the intention. Our theory: when somebody seems utterly sure while reality is collapsing around them, this particular song becomes almost unbearable. And if Nathan just genuinely loves “Shine,” that might be even better.