Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B+

What a strange movie landscape we live in now, where something as truly cinematic as The Lost Bus gets distribution rights by Apple Inc, who merely releases it on their streaming services. The irony here is that, even though this is a film that would have far greater visual impact on a movie theater screen than on a television—now matter how big that television is—it still has far greater audience potential on a streaming service. Granted, it would almost certainly get an exponentially larger audience on Netflix (300 million+ subscribers) than on Apple TV+ (45 million subscribers), but second-tier streamers have to put up the cash for their own exclusive content to lure suscribers. It’s hard not to imagine that’s a big part of what this movie is.

The unfortunate part of it is that I can tell you The Lost Bus comes highly recommended, but I can’t tell you to go see it in a theater, or even to pay for it on VOD. You need to subscribe to Apple TV+. Or! Here’s a deal for you, and I do this regularly: start a 7-day free trial, watch this movie, and then just make sure you cancel the subscription before it auto-renews. This is more trouble than a lot of people want to go to. If you want to go to the trouble for any particular movie, this is one I would regard as worth it.

I mean—it’s not perfect. It’s simply very good. It’s only momentarily distracting that 55-year-old Matthew McConaughey is cast as 44-year-old Kevin McKay, a native of Paradise, California who has only recently returned after decades of estrangement from his recently-deceased father. And when the film begins, the narrative really lays it on thick that this guy is down on his luck: in addition to his father having recently died, his cancer-ridden dog has to be put to sleep, and his 15-year-old son Shaun (played by Levi McConaughey, Matthew’s actual son) screams at Kevin that he wishes he was dead. We either learn about or actually see these things happen within 24 hours of the notorious 2018 Camp Fire breaking out, which then spreads through the entire region within hours. I haven’t even mentioned Kevin’s feeble mother (Kay McConaughey—Matthew’s actual mother) who also lives with him and is not equipped to take care of Shaun when he falls ill and starts vomiting.

In other words, to say that everything is going wrong for Kevin McKay, both in life overall and on this particular day, is truly an understatement. You might even say the script, co-written by director Paul Greengrass with two other writers, overdoes it a bit. It doesn’t seem likely that this part of the “true story” is truly sticking to the facts. It’s a little odd that a movie production would lean so hard into Hollywood tropes when Apple TV exists outside the typical plot notes of Hollywood executives.

And yet: I’ve got to hand it to Greengrass, who is a perfect fit for a production of this nature. Even with more plot contrivances than a lot of his other similar films, The Lost Bus has a procedural nature akin to United 93 (2006), which arguably leaned too far away from plot or character development. Or maybe a more apt comparison would be Captain Phillips (2013), which featured Oscar-worthy performances by both Tom Hanks and then-newcomer Barkhad Abdi.

I’d love to say The Lost Bus also features Oscar-worthy performances, but as good as they are, that’s just not what this movie is. There is an emotional speech that Matthew McConaughey gives, but it’s worth noting that when it finished, my husband simply said, “I don’t think the real guy gave that monologue.” Yeah, I don’t think he did either.

What The Lost Bus does do is grip you, from nearly the beginning the very end. We get just a few minutes of all that aforementioned hard luck Kevin is under, and then suddenly the Camp Fire is spreading, threatening the entire town of Paradise, CA (population 27,000—down to 4,764 as of the 2020 Census). The bus of the title is being driven by Kevin, a relatively recent hire, who is running late to get his bus back to base for maintenance. When fate has him the only empty bus in an evacuation area with a couple dozen elementary kids whose parents haven’t reached them need to be taken away, Kevin answers the call.

One of the teachers, Mary (America Ferrera), winds up on the bus with him and these kids. And then, maybe three quarters of The Lost Bus simply follows these two adults and all these children on a bus, facing gridlock, and rapidly approaching fire, and occasionally more than once, as they make a long succession of desperate attempts at getting out of the area. There’s a lot of fire onscreen in this film, and most of it looks like CGI—relatively impressive effects under the circumstances, but still recognizable as such. This is a rare occasion where I was weirdly comforted by that: I’d rather not think all of these children were constantly surrounded by actual fire only feet away.

It’s worth noting that 85 people died in the 2018 Camp Fire, and that is tragic, but—spoiler alert!—none of them are characters in this movie. Movies aren’t made about the victims. Movies are made about the heroes, and the people who survive. This is a large group of people who came very close to death (there is one particularly heavy sequence in which the two adults on the bus make the mutual decision that their only choice is to sit in the unmoving bus and hope the fire doesn’t take them all out—but fret not, this is closely followed by the most thrilling/harrowing sequence in the film) but still barely made it out alive. It’s the stories of inspiration and hope that we want to see and hear, and that’s exactly what The Lost Bus delivers.

*America Ferrera and Matthew McConaughey are having a hot time in the small town tonight!*

Overall: B+