Nobody captures the operational chaos of responding to an emergency better than Paul Greengrass, and he shows it again in The Lost Bus. Based on Lizzie Johnson’s book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, the film is a scorching reenactment of the 2018 Camp Fire, then the most devastating wildfire in California history. Matthew McConaughey plays just one of the heroes of that day, an ordinary bus driver grappling with his own personal issues, who sets all of that aside to get 22 schoolchildren and one teacher to safety.
Paradise is a town that, even if it weren’t caught up in a raging wildfire, would be a place where people eke out a hard-scrabble life. Co-writer Brad Inglesby previously captured the stress and tension of small-town blue-collar life with Out of the Furnace, and he brings that experience here. McConaughey plays Kevin McKay, a bus driver returned to his hometown to care for his ailing mother, and to watch over his angry, rebellious teen son. There are other familial hardships that Kevin must deal with, but mainly, he’s just a decent guy trying to catch a break. At this moment, he can’t even catch a couple of overtime shifts. The general feeling from most people is that Kevin is unreliable, and maybe that’s true. But he’s also someone who appears to be doing his best. The Lost Bus is a family affair in more ways than one, as Matthew’s mother Kay McCabe and son Levi also have roles in the film as, you guessed it, Kevin’s mother and son.
Kevin’s personal drama is just one of the sparks of this raging survival tale. When the fire gets out of control and all of the area is evacuated, Kevin, who is notoriously late in his route due to complications at home, is the only driver available to pick up kids stranded at school and get them to an evacuation zone. America Ferrera plays the beloved teacher accompanying them, Mary Ludwig, who has her own kid to worry about. The Lost Bus keeps you breathless and on the edge of your seat early on, as Kevin navigates the busload of screaming, terrified children through one hot zone after the next.
Mirroring Kevin’s journey is the struggle of the first responders to coordinate a response to the wildfires. From every moment we see them, the situation looks increasingly dire, and Greengrass captures in stark terms just how overmatched the firefighters are. After a while, you start to wonder why Greengrass bothers cutting to them other than to give us a chance to decompress from the action, and to offer something different visually than darkened skies and raging flames. But the repetition spreads elsewhere, too, and The Lost Bus operates on the same emotional level throughout. Kevin drives the squealing kids into a seemingly unpassable area of fire and smoke, the children squeal in terror, and he finds a way out. Rinse and repeat. The sense of danger begins to fade until the final stretch when Kevin barrels the broken-down bus (he shouldn’t have skipped that scheduled maintenance) through literal tunnels of fire in search of just the barest hint of daylight. It’s an incredible sequence, with Greengrass capturing the wild ferocity of unchecked fire. You feel yourself letting out a deep sigh of relief when it’s all over. In true Greengrass fashion, he even manages to take a shot at corporate malfeasance in the form of the stooge-like rep for Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), who played a key role in causing the wildfire. There’s even time for a momentary warning about climate change, one of Greengrass’ pet issues that he rightfully believes needs more attention in major Hollywood features.
The Lost Bus is the kind of movie that would’ve played in theaters to huge box office a few years ago. It’s a celebration of simple heroism, community, and overcoming adversity, with a solid lead role for McConaughey, his first in six years. This isn’t a movie that’s going to set the world ablaze, but on Apple TV+ it can heat things up for a couple of hours at home.
Apple releases The Lost Bus in select theaters on September 19th, then Apple TV+ on October 3rd.
