Culture
‘The Lost Bus’ spins a real-life story into a tense tale of survival
By: Gordon Briggs
Posted on:
Recently, there have been numerous sequels, reboots, and remakes flooding theaters. In the rush to capitalize on the familiar, I want to praise The Lost Bus, a tense and effective disaster drama currently streaming on Apple TV, which is well worth seeking out.
Not so long ago, Hollywood would have had to manufacture fictional disasters to tell stories about, but Lost Bus illustrates how smart direction, skillful computer-generated imagery, and effective performances can turn real-life disasters into suspenseful entertainment.
Here’s the premise: unfolding during one of the deadliest wildfires in history, Lost Bus follows a fateful day in 2018 when a bus driver named Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey) and a local school teacher (America Ferrera) carrying an entire bus filled with children become hopelessly lost in the blaze rapidly engulfing the countryside.
That premise sounds like your average made-for-TV movie. However, the filmmakers make a few visual and narrative choices that make this disaster movie completely work as a drama.
Right from its opening, director Paul Greengrass brings energy and immediacy to this movie. The filmmakers do an effective job at explaining the geography of the location, how the blaze started, and why the fire is spreading.
Greengrass employs his signature “chaos-cam” style, a technique that often utilizes frantic, even disorienting, handheld cameras and rapid zooms. The camera movements are designed to be jittery and anxiety-inducing, mimicking the unpredictable and overwhelming nature of the amount of control fire.
Furthermore, there are even scenes where, thanks to CG imagery, it looks like the movie is showing the blaze from the perspective of the fire itself.
Luckily, even in the midst of the chaos, there’s still a focus on the character. For those viewers hesitant over Greengrass’ propensity for ‘shaky cam’ (I totally understand that criticism), there’s more visual variety here, especially when the camera snakes through traffic jams to show you the scale of the fire’s destruction.
In fact, the best moments here are when we still get close-ups on stars McConaughey and Ferrera, whose encounter with wildfires spurs them to reflect on their own personal failings.
It’s streaming on Apple TV. I encourage you to seek it out. ★★★ ½