The Lost Bus 2025 Movie Review
This film has some intense action sequences, punctuated perfectly with emotional cores as Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera rush to get a bus of 22 young lives out of the fiery eclipse before the town of Paradise, California is fully taken by the vicious flames. They are both determined to get the children to safety but what rests on the back of their minds is the uncertainty regarding their own families. It would’ve been easy for a plot to have been crafted from this horrendous event from the perspective of a firefighter or, in fact, any kind of emergency personnel, but instead they have chosen to spend time with a struggling school bus driver and a teacher as they both make the perilous journey through the town.
Set in the near distant past of 2018, we have here a blend of survival horror and a docu-drama as Paul Greengrass includes real life footage of the fires that rampaged California of that same year, displacing hundreds of thousands of homeowners in the area, and caused quite the apocalyptic atmosphere as a perpetual tunnel of darkness set in. It is undoubtedly horrifying as people scramble to save themselves and their loved ones, forced to leave their homes and execute their places of comfort. This film needed to be made in order to bring more attention to the devastation wildfires can cause, even if it is caught early, as shown with the Palisades fire earlier this year and indeed with the Camp fire.
Greengrass and Rokseth (cinematographer) chose to deliver this film with a strong emphasis on movement; almost all the movement, even of the fire swarms the brush, are constantly moving, thus making it feel more documentarian than a cinematic experience. You as the audience member, physically feel like you are part of the action, I personally was white knuckling my seat for more than half the film. It is truly something that Greengrass excels at.
The performances delivered by both Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera, as well as the 22 young children on the bus, were all fantastic. We truly feel like we are inside that bus with them as they bare their souls to a complete stranger, the roaring of the building fires giving them an unstable atmosphere. You truly believe that these two individuals are battling hard against the insurmountable threat the fire is. There is also a palpable sense of helplessness that you feel as a viewer, echoed from the actor’s faces; they were truly lost in amongst the smoke, ash and flames. The children were all incredible at selling the terror and confusion without coming across as whiny and irritating, in the lulls between the high octane drama, we do get several scenes in which we just get to sit with these people in a bus, and it was those moments where the audience get a true sense of the world that these children were experiencing. They did not know, as we did not know. And having to watch as Ferrera broke down into silent tears as to not jostle the children’s fragile emotional state was heartbreaking.
Overall this film should be on anyone self respecting film connoisseur’s watchlist for all the reasons listed above. Wildfires and how to approach such unpredictable beasts should also be a the forefront of discussions regarding updated evacuation procedures in schools, hospitals dams towns and cities in the whole.
