"Greengrass and co-screenwriter Brad Ingelsby have taken their inspiration from Lizzie Johnson's 2021 book Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, about the calamity and the ironically named town caught up in it, pointing up the extraordinary, unassuming courage of school-bus driver Kevin McKay who piloted a busload of screaming kids and their teacher through hell to safety."
"As this terrible blaze sparked by a poorly maintained power line sweeps across the state, we see everything periodically from the fire's own point of view, whooshing along with it and the glowing embers through the smoky chaos. A school desperately needs to be evacuated as the fire closes in; no other vehicle is available and Kevin steps up, neglecting his own sick son in the process."
Paul Greengrass depicts the 2018 Camp Fire as a dynamically shot, earnestly performed disaster narrative that foregrounds human courage over political context. The story follows school-bus driver Kevin McKay, an alienated everyman who redeems himself by driving a busload of children and their teacher through lethal flames to safety. The film draws on Lizzie Johnson's 2021 book Paradise and situates the blaze as a darkness-at-noon horror sparked by a poorly maintained power line. Performances include Matthew McConaughey as Kevin and America Ferrera as teacher Mary Ludwig, with sequences shown from the fire's point of view.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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