Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

Documentary Film, 2019, TV-MA

Premise - The Netflix original documentary film on the colossal failure of the Fyre Festival, a supposed 2017 music festival to be held in the Bahamas. Desperate men resort to desperate measures as failures in planning turn into legitimate acts of fraud, scamming visitors and employees of tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.

Review - Netflix and Hulu released their Fyre Festival documentaries right about the same time. I watched Hulu's version first, so naturally it's going to be difficult for this review to not be a direct comparison. I don't know what my takeaway from this documentary would be if I had seen it on its own, rather than to supplement the information I had already received via Hulu. I will say that many reviews I have read declare Hulu's version to be better, which is why I watched it first, but I'd say Netflix's version inches out on top.

As far as execution and production quality, I thought it was miles better. Better audio, better lighting, better focus on the interviewees, everything. I also mentioned how I'm not a huge fan of the documentary format, which I think is accentuated by the random footage that matches the theme of the content that Hulu added. Netflix had none of that. To their credit though, Hulu had some strong dramatic moments, like the growing tension as the date of the actual festival drew nearer.

With content, however, each documentary had its pros and cons. Netflix had a pinpointed focus on Fyre Media, both on the Fyre App side and the Fyre Festival side. Hulu had some of that as well, but also made greater inferences on millennial and influencer culture. Neither is better or worse, just different. Generally though, I felt as though Hulu's was more about the impact of Fyre Festival on its target audience and guests, whereas Netflix's was more about the impact on the Fyre employees, who may or may not have been complicit in these outrageous actions. Again, both documentaries had both sides of things, but the balance was slightly different. For an obvious plus, Hulu actually had footage from CEO Billy McFarland, which Netflix did not. Then again, Hulu's felt more like a... I don't know... conspiracy video in its tone? The way it was trying to make out the CEO as some criminal mastermind as opposed to someone who screwed up and then kept digging himself into a deeper and deeper hole.

Overall, I enjoyed Netflix's slightly better, but it's still a documentary which I'm never going to prefer to the narrative format. (69/100)

Quote - "Andy, if you will go down and suck Cunningham's dick, who's the head of Customs, and get him to clear all of the containers with water, you will save this festival."

Or the quote about how there were really two fyre festivals - the real one was the promotional shoot. It's just that it only had 60 people instead of 60,000, but that was very much a real experience.

What to watch for -What struck me in this one was the footage of all of the local workers! There were hundreds of locals, forced to work 20 or so hour days, with maybe 3 hours of sleep, for weeks, for NO FREAKIN' PAY. And they did it all because they were told this rich white man was going to bring the island good fortune, that it would pay off in millions. To work that hard for so long, and then the festival turns out to be a complete bust and still years later they've gotten no pay... it's so infuriating. Not to mention all of the people who worked to feed the workers. So unethical. The way he exploited these people's land... disgusting.

If you liked this documentary, I'd of course recommend Hulu's Fyre Fraud! And same as last time, I'd like to make a comparison to Shane Dawson's youtube documentary on TanaCon.

Directed by Chris Smith
Distributed by Netflix