A burned-out bus driver attempts to evacuate 22 children from a rapidly spreading wildfire in The Lost Bus, now streaming worldwide on Apple TV+. This thrilling true story from director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, Captain Phillips) grabs hold of your attention from the very beginning and never lets go—even if we occasionally feel the dramatic underpinnings have been artificially amped up in the screenplay, credited to the director and Brad Ingelsby, and based on Lizzie Johnson‘s novel Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire.
The Lost Bus is based on the true story of the 2018 Camp Fire in Northern California, which claimed 85 lives en route to becoming one of the deadliest wildfires in the state’s history. Sweeping aerial shots in the film’s opening scenes showcase the landscape that started the blaze: poorly-maintained electrical lines that run through arid forests that haven’t seen rain in seven months. When high winds shake loose a transformer, a spot fire is sparked—and it’s in a location so remote that firefighters struggle to reach it following initial reports.
But before the fire spreads, Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey), a school bus driver in Paradise, California, is going through his own personal inferno. Depot dispatcher Ruby (Ashlie Atkinson) gives him trouble for not getting his vehicle into maintenance and turns down his request for overtime, mother Sherry (Kay McConaughey, Matt’s real-life mother) appears to be going through the initial stages of dementia, and teenage son Shaun (Levi McConaughey, his real-life son) won’t even talk to him, drowning out their conversations with heavy metal music.
Kevin has returned to his home town after years away following the death of his father, whom he hadn’t spoken to in decades. He seems to be struggling through every aspect of his life, and if all the personal and professional issues weren’t enough, he accompanies his dying dog to the vet as she is put down.
These early scenes in The Lost Bus—before we even get to the fire—feel as tense and nerve-wracking as Uncut Gems, as Kevin’s world comes crashing down around him. His son is sick and vomiting at home, and his mother is unable to care for him—Kevin needs to rush home to bring Shaun some medicine—but Ruby is breathing down his neck for him to get his bus to the mechanic. He’s also out of gas, and there’s a line at the station… and what’s up with those clouds of smoke billowing over the horizon?
An evacuation order is called in Paradise as the fire rapidly approaches, and parents rush to get their children out of school. But 22 kids are left behind, and schoolteacher Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera) and other staff don’t have the capacity to get them all out. All other bus drivers are out of range, but because he’s been running so late, Kevin can pick them up; it means leaving his mother and son to fend for themselves as the fire approaches—but it also represents a certain kind of salvation.
The Lost Bus becomes almost unbearably tense as the fire engulfs the town and Kevin and Mary must navigate through gridlocked traffic and narrow backroads in search of a route to safety. But the raging inferno also burns away everything else on Kevin’s mind, and allows him to focus on one single task. Ironically, climactic scenes of the bus literally driving through the blaze don’t quite match the psychological tension of the film’s early scenes; we have little doubt that Kevin will get these kids to safety, but that won’t solve the other issues in his life.
Some of the best scenes in The Lost Bus have nothing to do with McConaughey’s driver, but instead focus on Fire Chief Martinez (Yul Vazquez) and the procedural-like response to his attempt to control the blaze—which is eventually abandoned as his firefighters are instructed to instead focus on helping the town evacuate.
Scenes of firefighters (many of whom are played by their real-life counterparts) struggling in the face of an increasingly insurmountable threat are captured by the director in his trademark handheld camera, documentary-like style, and represent one of the most terrifying depictions of wildfire ever put to screen. The source novel dedicated greater focus to the overall response rather than the bus at the center of this film, and we almost wish Greengrass had followed that lead.
But McConaughey is something of a re-revelation in his first live-action role since 2019’s The Gentleman, and reminds us of the career renaissance he sparked more than a decade ago; there are few actors that could play this kind of broken American man with such urgency and intensity. He’s nicely complemented by Ferrera as the teacher who attempts to keep her calm in front of her students, and works with the driver to get them to safety.
The Lost Bus skipped theatrical release in most countries as it went direct to Apple TV+, but don’t sleep on this thrilling true-life story, which is just as relevant today as when the Camp Fire hit in 2018. We’re all drowning through our own personal struggles, but that greater existential threat is lingering over the horizon.
