FYRE: THE GREATEST PARTY THAT NEVER HAPPENED: Significantly More Successful Than The Festival

Fyre is a documentary that could have settled with being entertaining, but it manages to hit far more notes and explore many more ideas than that.

One of the biggest news stories of 2017 was Fyre Festival; thousands paid between $500 and $12,000 to attend the so-called “luxury festival experience” in the Bahamas that turned out to have as much glitz and glamour as a refugee camp. Founder Billy McFarland was jailed, co-founder Ja Rule was the subject of a $100 million lawsuit, and social media had enough meme material for months.

Fyre tells that story. It could easily have been a documentary that lambasted the poorly-thought-out event and mocked the rich elites who paid so much for a ticket to a doomed event, but it goes a lot more in-depth than that. It interviews those who helped plan and organise Fyre Festival, as well as those who covered the affair, and charts the history of the event from McFarland’s early business ventures to his post-festival attempts to cash in on his own failures. There’s depth on a variety of threads and ideas both with regards to the festival and its aftermath, and Fyre tells the stories of so many different individuals.

Not only does Fyre tell an interesting story, but it tells it well. It’s edited and structured in such a way that the festival’s demise feels less like a punchline and more like a slowly unravelling ball of string, closer to The Thick of It than anything else, so the whole ordeal is tense and hilarious in equal measure. On top of that the interviews and b-roll are some of the most beautiful to ever be used in a documentary, and the interviewees open up in revealing and surprising ways – clearly director Chris Smith is a master of his craft.

A Class of Its Own

The whole Fyre Festival ordeal touches upon a range of subjects and ideas, but Fyre focuses on what is likely the most interesting and pertinent one – that of class and wealth.

As a festival Fyre targeted the financial elite (or, more accurately, the children of the financial elite), with adverts selling a dream of partying on Bahamas beaches, mingling with models, and listening to “hip” music. The astronomical ticket prices didn’t hurt too. Promotional material was indistinguishable from scenes from The Wolf of Wall Street, and famous models and socialites promoted the festival. Of course, the Glastonbury-esque end result of the festival didn’t appeal to this demographic, which is one of the reasons many attendees proclaimed the festival a disaster.

Fyre could easily have content itself with mocking these people, who had thousands of dollars to buy into a vapid dream – and it does to an extent, like airing a famous Ron Funches joke and interviewing some of the attendees, who seem just as entitled as you’d expect. But the documentary takes this idea of class far further than the short-lived rise and fall of the new American Dream, and explores the way ideas of class and wealth brought upon this meteoric fall in the first place.

Several interviewees who knew McFarland discuss his dreams of perceived wealth, and lots of footage shows him jetskiing, drinking with models, and enjoying “the high life”. Yet he’s now being charged with fraud – evidently his dream of wealth, built off the back of other wealthy people, crumbled in on itself when said wealthy people used their remaining wealth to reclaim the rest of their wealth.

There are also victims to this game of millionaire-gladiatorial-combat, and Fyre does a commendable job at showing the hidden figures in the calamity. Hundreds of manual labourers from the local area who built the festival, and local caterers and managers, received no payment for their work, and some of their stories are heartbreaking. As well as them the festival was built off the hard work of a variety of the interviewees, all of whom are now in debt or legal trouble because of their unwitting hand in McFarland’s fraud. Fyre Festival was a showdown between rich people flaunting their wealth, both the organisers and the attendees, and it’s the workers who suffer for it.

The Man Behind The Mess

The real narrative core of Fyre is the story of McFarland, as the story charts everything from his early business venture Magnesis to his post-festival attempts to continue building a fortune. However for the bulk of the story he’s absent, with little heed given to his mentality and process compared to the illogical actions he made.

Director Smith previously directed the fantastic Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond, a fascinating character study of Jim Carrey’s descent into existential madness, so he’s clearly a talented director when it comes to depicting real-life personalities. Unfortunately Fyre opted not to focus on McFarland or his psyche for much of its runtime, instead mentioning his bizarre choices and mistakes but never exploring why he chose to act the way he did. Interviewees cryptically refer to the “management” instead of any particular individuals by name, and as such a real character profile feels missing.

Admittedly Fyre ends with a gripping recount of the fraud McFarland pulled in an attempt to monetize Fyre Festival’s failure, and does touch on the man’s character. But it doesn’t feel as nuanced or confrontational as it could, and as such the whole chronicle misses out on some depth it could enjoy.

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened: Conclusion

As to be expected with any Netflix documentary, Fyre is a gripping story that does fantastic justice to its core events and characters while musing on reasons for why it happened. It’s expertly made, and a thrilling ride throughout.

It is worth pointing out however that one of the documentary production companies is Jerry Media, who was also a production company for Fyre Festival. While it’s impossible to know for certain, it’s definitely possible that elements of Fyre were worked or amended so the company could save face from the festival itself. Perhaps this isn’t the case, and Jerry Media produced the documentary in order to be open and honest about the failings of all parties surrounding the festival – but it’s worth bearing in mind when watching.

Does the fact the documentary was partly funded by a company involved in the incident, mitigate some of the comment made by the documentary?

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened was released on Netflix on 18th January 2018