With support from Oscar-nominated co-star America Ferrera (Barbie, Superstore), Matthew McConaughey (The Gentlemen, Interstellar) gives a gut-wrenching performance as a man not seeking to be a hero, but who summons uncommon courage in the face of terrifying danger. The 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California’s Butte County was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. I felt the Princess of Wales theatre filled with gasps and tears at this world premiere of The Lost Bus.
Adapted by Paul Greengrass and Brad Ingelsby (Mare of Easttown) from Lizzie Johnson’s non-fiction book, Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, The Lost Bus is high-tension, high-stakes storytelling, recreating the chaos and panic of the Camp Fire with fevered pacing, dynamic camera work, and vivid detail. “Another dry and windy day in paradise” is rapidly transforming Northern California into something close to an inferno. Fires are spreading, and huge plumes of smoke fill the horizon.
School bus driver Kevin McKay is ending his day when he gets a call requesting help for 23 children stranded at Ponderosa Elementary School. As the disaster escalates, Kevin knows that navigating his way toward the school could prove perilous, but a sense of responsibility, along with memories of personal loss, sends him hurtling into harm’s way.
Ferrera and McConaughey’s performances in The Lost Bus were pushed to the edge, physically and potentially emotionally. At the Q&A following the screening, they discussed how they wanted to do their due diligence when portraying their real-life counterparts. Both of them listened to the true stories from the survivors countless times to get a better grasp of their roles.
I greatly sympathized with Kevin’s struggles in the first 20-30 minutes, which depicted how Kevin was having one of his roughest days: his son hates him, he has to put down his dog, he cannot pick up extra shifts at the bus depot, and he has to take care of his sick mom. Greengrass and Ingelsby could not have written a better character opening than this one, to show a man down on his luck, very relatable to many people.
Ferrera’s portrayal of Mary Ludwig in The Lost Bus was a little more disjointed than McConaughey’s role, but Ferrera brought out all the emotional impact to match the tone of this film. For a biographical film, I would have thought we would see the start of Mary’s day too, but we just start her journey after 30 minutes, focusing on Kevin’s story. The courageousness Ferrera brought to Mary made me want to see her do a full-on action flick; she brought a lot of passion and care to this school teacher role, showing the lengths teachers go to for their students.
“The Lost Bus’s strengths were evidently in its character acting and writing.”
Yul Vasquez’s Chief Martinez accurately reflected a real-life leader getting cooked in his role, as the wildfires kept spreading. You can see his eyes shifting, looking for constant solutions while feeling the pressure from other first responder departments. There were moments I felt the scenes they captured made the Chief look like he made some dumb calls, but I thought that added to the realism. First responders have a tough time quickly analyzing a situation and responding accordingly, despite not having all the accurate facts.
The Lost Bus’s strengths were evidently in its character acting and writing. I thought adding in the looter mentality during this disaster added to the fear factor, making me hold my breath. Sadly, the movie started crumbling quickly with its VFX and camera work. I appreciated that Greengrass went for a pseudo-handheld camera or on-the-ground news crew aesthetics to capture this dramatization of a real event. But the shaky camera work made me very dizzy throughout the film, adding to the wildfires.
I understand Greengrass most likely wanted to add more chaos, but the general audience would feel overstimulated. He did some shots like this in The Bourne Ultimatum, too, almost as disorienting. The saving grace to break up the fast, swinging shots was the found footage shots mixed throughout the movie. However, I heard audiences laughing throughout the film, but not in a good way—specifically when the VFX suspended reality.
The choice to use drone shots to track the wildfires spreading and Kevin’s driving through the fires, mixed with VFX, reminded me of the driving film style from Netflix’s Havoc. Havoc contained offensively cartoon-y driving, but The Lost Bus had some shots where the bus looked like it was unrealistically swinging and swaying, defying gravity and not in a good, Wicked way. The VFX worked well to sell burning homes, cars, and the general smokiness—but completely missed the mark on certain emotional beats.
The Lost Bus’s acting carried this movie to safety in the best way possible, bringing their raw emotions to their performances. Greengrass adapted the story from the page to the screen well, but could have had more practical elements blended into the VFX. He purposefully uses every minute in this two-hour feature, with only one or two lingering shots. If you can get over the unpolished visual effects, the acting will make this a worthwhile watch for this dramatized true story.
