The true story behind The Lost Bus is stranger than fiction. More specifically, its premise feels like something dreamed up by a screenwriter in the late '90s, when disaster movies like Twister, Volcano, and Deep Impact were all the rage. An average Joe with problems of his own heroically uses his blue-collar skills and homegrown gumption to rescue a bus full of children stranded by a ravenous wildfire. And the cherry on top? This community that's ablaze is called Paradise.
Yet The Lost Bus is based on the true story of school bus driver Kevin McKay, who on Nov. 8, 2018, rescued 22 grade school students from the Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history to date. In the movie version of McKay's life, details will be tweaked for dramatic effect. And this brave everyman gets the Hollywood glow-up, being played by Matthew McConaughey. However, director Paul Greengrass, who co-wrote the screenplay with Brad Ingelsby, battles back against a full-fledged glossy disaster movie.
So, what might have been a spectacle, channeling real-world heroism into the dynamic derring-do of an American action hero, instead becomes a rocky ride, taking turns into the maudlin one moment and the theatrically threatening the next. The result is a movie that is gripping, but only in gasps.
The Lost Bus cherry-picks grit and glamor.
When a wildfire spreads faster than the firefighters can handle, school evacuations are called so quickly that some parents can't get to their kids in time. So the bus depot sends in Kevin (McConaughey), who's got open seats and determination to get these kids — and Mary Ludwig (America Ferrera), the teacher looking after them — to safety, whether that means traversing troubled routes or carving out daring detours.
When it comes to the film's depiction of fire, Greengrass is devoted to instilling terror. Scenes of a California town burning are depicted like a war zone. Smoke turns a sunny day dark as night. Fire rages, making a once cozy street unrecognizable. Civilians flee, screaming and even trying to hijack vehicles through violence. This same attention to the gravity and griminess of wildfires extends to the faces of the children on Kevin's bus. While Mary and Kevin warn them to stay away from the windows, their cheeks are smudged with soot. Their eyes are weary from tears and exhaustion.
Most effective in getting across the fear fire should instill is cinematographer Pal Ulvik Rokseth's use of POV shots for the fire. Beginning low to the ground in brush, these initially recall the POV shots of slashers like Michael Myers, peeping on their unaware victims. But as the intensity grows, so does the height and speed, suggesting the rushing of the wind and how it carries the flames farther and farther. Until finally, the fire's POV soars into the air, swooping down like a descending dragon. It's a flourish well used, as this device establishes the position of power the fire possesses over people, who can only run or burn.
By contrast, Greengrass tries to ground the infrastructural drama of the rescue crews by repeatedly cutting from the flame-afflicted bus of children to a conference room, flanked with firefighters and other municipal authorities. These scenes are so heavy on exposition that they bring tension to a dead stop. And the fumbling of the actors' lines in these scenes might be meant to feel naturalistic, but comes off as clumsy — especially in contrast to Ferrera and McConaughey.
Even dressed down in casual wear with some make-up to make them look less debonair and more haggard, they have the capable screen presence of movie stars — and the teeth, too. This is actually distracting on McConaughey, as the film goes to such lengths to stress the poverty and lack of self-care his character practices, yet he has perfectly straight pearly whites.
This might be overlooked were The Lost Bus a movie like Armageddon or Independence Day, where everything is heightened — including the appearance of average Americans. But here, every flash of those pearly whites is a reminder that The Lost Bus aims to be grounded in its heroics... while maintaining a Hollywood glossiness. It feels like two movies at battle with each other, and the conflict kills engagement.
The Lost Bus is slyly misogynistic.
Before the fire, Greengrass and Ingelsby take great pains to show just how hard Kevin has it. Within the first act, he faces conflicts with his mother, his ex-wife, his boss, a pharmacist, and his son —and all but the last of these people are women.
Through casting, Greengrass sets up that this traditionally manly man, who is trying to provide for his family, must contend with emasculation at every turn. His mother is a burden. His ex-wife is a nag. His boss, Ruby (Ashlie Atkinson), won't give him the overtime he needs to make ends meet (even though she explains rationally why that's not possible), and the pharmacist at a small convenience store dares to be on the phone when he rushes in demanding help. If I recall correctly, even the veterinarian who calls to tell him his beloved dog must be put down is a woman.
Aside from proving Kevin's got a lot (of bad) going on, this also establishes Kevin as a man in need of proving himself, proving he is a man who can push back on all these female forces that overwhelm him. So, when he arrives at the school and meets Mary, he diminishes her by calling her "ma'am" and "teach" — anything but the name she's given him.
Over the course of their dangerous journey, Kevin's attitude softens to Mary, as she wins his respect through her composure and endurance. The film even briefly seems to flirt with a romantic subplot (Speed 3: Fire in Paradise), though that cliché is dropped as half-heartedly as it's suggested. However, this framing of Kevin vs. every woman in Paradise (and beyond, as his ex is a phone call away), positions The Lost Bus as a tale of redemption on strictly machismo terms.
In the movie's start, Kevin fears he's a failure as a son, husband, and father. But this rescue — which relates to none of those roles — is meant to redeem him? It's a bit confounding. What the real-life McKay did is incredibly heroic. What the onscreen Kevin does is too, but is tainted by chauvinist politics that see value in bravery chiefly if it validates a man's identity as protector. And yet the most compelling performance is from one of Kevin's supposed antagonists.
Ashlie Atkinson runs away with The Lost Bus.
I'm ashamed to admit I'm unfamiliar with Atkinson's work on The Gilded Age as Mamie Fish. But in The Lost Bus, she carries so much dramatic weight with every breath that I might need to start a binge-watch. On paper, Ruby's role is thin. She's the director of the Paradise bus depot, responsible for assigning routes and overtime, as well as organizing maintenance checks and — apparently — evacuations when the need arises.
When Kevin approaches her, it's with a facade of gentility, pleading a sob story to convince her to bend the rules on overtime to benefit him. Her answer is delivered gently, but firmly. Her eyes are open, but reflecting a thinly veiled warning: Not today. His response is fury, but one he takes with him out the door.
In one scene, Atkinson represents a woman I've seen over and over. Ruby is in a male-dominated workforce, often regarded with feigned politeness that's actually kind of infantilizing! And when she comes back into the movie, again and again trying to make order out of chaos, I was invested every time. While Kevin is battling a fight against furious nature, Ruby battles the emotional warfare of comforting the awaiting parents without providing false hope. Between this and Mary's role in keeping the children on the bus calm and alive, Greengrass must have some awareness that barreling through hard times with lock-eyed determination and grit isn't all it takes to save the day.
Now, in the end, Greengrass does offer some recompense, with Kevin making brief amends with some of the women who'd been painted as his antagonists. But as title cards reveal the facts about what followed, the misogynistic slant to the story feels even more out of place.
The Lost Bus is an odd film. At times, Greengrass embraces the '90s disaster movie theatrics that can give an audience catharsis through the hero's survival over seemingly impossible odds. At times, he's inexplicably fascinated by control room strategies that play out with all the excitement of a business meeting.
In some moments, he clearly values the incredible character work of supporting actress Ashlie Atkinson, whose dynamic portrait of a blue-collar woman doing her part (and her damndest!) is so moving that it almost single-handedly saves this movie from its regressive sexist messaging. But in the end, Greengrass favors a sentimentality for an old-school brand of macho identity that is toxic. So, The Lost Bus — despite its best efforts to celebrate an everyday hero — becomes a messy journey of rancid masculinity.
The Lost Bus was reviewed out of its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. The movie will open in limited release on Sept. 19, and debut on Apple TV+ on Oct. 3.
