Set during the 2018 Camp Fire, which became the deadliest wildfire in California history and destroyed the community of Paradise, The Lost Bus is based on the true story of school bus driver Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey), who was forced to navigate his way through an inferno coming at him from multiple sides in a bus carrying 22 children and teacher Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera). Based on the book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, and directed by the great Paul Greengrass (United 93, Green Zone, three Jason Bourne movies, Captain Phillips), who specializes in making actual events feel real on screen, the film often feels like a documentary with occasional re-enactments thrown in for good measure—and it somehow works.
Before we get to the fire, the movie front loads us with backstory about how much McKay is struggling in his personal life. His wife has left him, his teenage son (played by McConaughey’s real-life son Levi) hates him, his late father was abusive, and his mother (played by the actor’s real-life mother, Kay) can barely take care of herself on a good day. His bus-driving job doesn’t help pay the bills, and his boss (Ashlie Atkinson) won’t give him extra hours because he’s new to the work. Still, he’s desperate to repair the rift with his son, even as his ex keeps threatening to take him away.
While all of this is going on, we get background glimpses of weather reports and hear about the area’s severe lack of rain for well over 100 days. Winds are substantial, threatening to down area power lines, which inevitably cause the fires. We also embed ourselves with local fire fighters, including Chief Martinez (Yul Vazquez), who is the voice of authority and outrage, especially at California Gas & Electric Company, which, when winds kicked up, delayed turning off the power to avoid sparking fires. Greengrass is a master at telling these parallel stories, all of which eventually intersect when the bus loses radio communication and doesn’t know that the original drop-off location for the kids has been burned to the ground, forcing McKay to drive his bus into the heart of this hellscape.
The film does a masterful job conveying every danger thrown at these kids, from flames and heat to looters and debris on the roads. McConaughey conveys just the right amount of terror, panic, and belief that there must be a way out, even if that means stopping in what is essentially the eye of the event because it’s the only safe place while acres around them are ablaze.
Thanks to a tight screenplay by Greengrass and Brad Ingelsby, I was captivated and tense for nearly the entirety of The Lost Bus. The special effects are pretty solid, and Greengrass always keeps us clear exactly where McKay is geographically and in relation to the fire, except for key moments when that needs to be kept as much a mystery from us as it does from McKay himself. It’s a tale that manages to be both intimate and sweeping in scope, never letting us forget that these are people attempting to survive, even as they make mistakes and aren’t quite sure what kinds of lives they’ll have waiting for them once they escape.
The film is now playing on Apple TV+.
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