BY ALISON FOREMAN • JANUARY 19 2019

Whether you witnessed that flood of orange tiles on Instagram or saw the toast and cheese pic that lit up Twitter, most social media users remember the infamous fail that was the 2017 Fyre Festival. Netflix's new documentary, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, is clueing everyone else in on the drama—and giving those of us who thought we knew all of the debacle's hairy details even more to gasp over.

Directed by Chris Smith of Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, Fyre unpacks the disastrous behind-the-scenes realities of the scam orchestrated by entrepreneur-turned-felon Billy McFarland. What was initially promoted by supermodels, influencers, and rapper Ja Rule as a luxury concert experience in the Bahamas was soon revealed to be a multi-million dollar swindle that left numerous investors defrauded and hundreds of wannabe attendees stranded in a bleak wreckage site thousands of miles from home.

Smith faced an uphill battle in effectively retelling this wild story. Desensitized by gruesome re-examinations of vicious killers gone by, true crime fans rarely get invested in financial transgressions. Moreover, Fyre's bummed out attendees were often portrayed online not as victims, but as overly entitled children getting exactly what they (and their multi-thousand dollar purchases) deserved.

However, using deliberate pacing, creative narrative building, and wildly resourceful imagery, Fyre manages to transform its seemingly mundane subject into a tense slow burn with new consequences around every corner.

Highlighting the harm done to Fyre Media's employees, both at its headquarters in New York City and on the ground at the festival site, Fyre's documentarians steadily unearth the scam's real victims, casting what was once a laughable, viral moment in a grim and unsettling new light.

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