Back in 2006, director Paul Greengrass unveiled the docudrama United 93, about the harrowing events of 9/11, and many of us wondered ... too soon?
Apparently not. Viewers flocked to theaters, absorbed and horrified by the as-accurate-as-possible depiction of that heinous terrorist attack, and the selfless sacrifice of the passengers aboard United Flight 93.
Now, not quite seven years after the calamitous firestorm that leveled Paradise, Ca., Greengrass has responded with this docudrama ... and, again, is it too soon?
Absolutely not, thanks in part to a timely “message line” delivered by Fire Chief Martinez (Yul Vazquez), toward the end of the film: “Every year, the fires gets bigger. And there’s more of them. We’re being damn fools. That’s the truth.”
(Probably more of a 2025 sentiment than one from 2018, but still persuasive.)
That’s merely an incidental moment in a mesmerizing drama that begins at 4 p.m. on November 7, 2018, as recently hired Pine Ridge School Unified Transportation District bus driver Kevin McKay (Matthew McConaughey) drops his busload of children at their various stops, following a day at school.
Kevin’s life has gone completely to hell. He has returned to Paradise, following his father’s death from cancer, and taken the bus-driving job in order to deal with the lingering medical debt. He has moved his mother, suffering from stage 4 melanoma, into his home; his teenage son Shaun (Levi McConaughey, the star’s actual son) also lives with them. And — icing on the cake — Kevin’s beloved dog just had to be put down, also due to cancer.
(That may seem like Greengrass and co-scripter Brad Ingelsby are exaggerating this poor guy’s misery, but in fact those details are accurate.)
McConaughey, always at his best playing the sort of blue-collar, working-class bloke who makes this country run, delivers a shattering performance in these early scenes. His features are grim, resigned, frustrated and even frightened, his eyes haunted. Trying to juggle all these responsibilities has made him unreliable at work, to the dismay of his boss, Ruby (Ashlie Atkinson, in an excellent supporting role).
These scenes are intercut with frequent news announcements — 210 days with no rain, rapidly accelerating wind gusts — and unsettling images of PG&E cell towers and cables swaying back and forth.