Worth: $18.00
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Cast:
Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Thira Chutikul
Intro:
… a masterful piece of humanistic cinema that also doubles as a heart-stopping adventure …
Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives is a film that could have been rendered redundant by the existence of the extraordinary documentary Rescue directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi. Instead, it is a moving fictionalised companion piece that remains faithful to the true story of the 2018 Tham Luang Nang Non caves rescue mission in northern Thailand that saw thousands of local and international volunteers attempt to free twelve young boys and their soccer coach from a flooded and increasingly impossible cave system where they were trapped for seventeen days.
After soccer practice, the team known as The Wild Boars decide to go into the caves and then return for the birthday party of one of their members. When only one child from the team shows up to the celebration, the parents become immediately concerned for their children, especially as pouring rains signalling the early start of a long monsoon season come down thick and fast.
The Thai authorities led by Governor Narongsak (Sahajak Boonthanakit) spring into quick action. The Thai Navy SEALs, under the authority of Commander Kiet (Thira Chutikul), gather around the caves readying themselves to search for the boys. Local cave diver Vernon Unsworth (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) makes a call to two hobbyist but experienced cave divers, John Volanthen (Colin Farrell) and Rick Stanton (Viggo Mortensen) who both live in England. Soon, the pair arrive at the caves prepared to assist in locating the group. What they have not estimated is how treacherous the cave system is, and how ill-fitted most of the Thai SEALs are to undertake a sustained dive that could stretch for kilometres.
Test dives through the caves show how precarious the mission is. Reaching only the early chambers of the system, Volathen and Stanton realise that finding the boys alive is increasingly unlikely given how strong the currents are in the waters and the fact that the rains are causing the structure of the caves to destabilise. While they work to find a method that will allow them to traverse the cave system, hundreds of local volunteers are undertaking the enormous task of diverting the rainwater coming into the caves through above ground sinkholes and trying to pump out water from the ground level.
An incredible breakthrough is made when Volathen and Stanton, aided by Thai SEALs, find the Wild Boars after a dive that took around seven hours. The film captures the joy and heartbreak of the discovery. They are alive, but they are so deeply imbedded in the cave system, how will it be possible to get them out?
To this end, Stanton comes up with a plan to include other cave divers he knows to aid in the rescue effort, including Australian anaesthetist Harry Harris (Joel Edgerton) and fellow Brits Chris Jewell (Tom Bateman) and Jason Mallinson (Paul Gleeson). To get the boys out will require more than just an accompanied dive, it will require them being unconscious, so as not to panic during the gruelling experience.
Ron Howard creates a film that is visually arresting by recreating the dives with as much authenticity as possible. Filmed in controlled conditions in Queensland, the recreations feel urgent and honest. The external filming done in Thailand is breathtaking. Yet for all that, the film is not ostentatious. Howard manages to capture a myriad of real-life concerns within his framing but never over-eggs the recipe.
Perhaps the best example of how Howard and script writer William Nicholson seek authenticity over spectacle is in the character work. Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, and Viggo Mortensen give impressively understated performances. They don’t exist as ‘white saviours’ nor men who are undertaking the task for any kind of glory. They are ordinary men who are frightened yet quietly determined. Howard also allows the audience to see how crucial the community response to the incident was. The film honours everyone who was involved in a respectful manner; whether it be the farmers who allowed their rice paddies to be flooded for the sake of the lost boys, or the parents who prayed for blessings, to the Thai divers that lost their lives during the mission.
Thirteen Lives is a beautiful film in almost every aspect – it is also tense and tenacious. Despite knowing the outcome of the rescue, the audience is still gripped by the magnitude of the effort and Howard directs the action and the emotional cost with equal grace and understanding.
It’s a shame that a film that is so visceral and visual will not be getting an in-cinema release as Thirteen Lives almost demands the biggest screen available to experience Howard and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s exquisite vision. Even so, Thirteen Lives is a masterful piece of humanistic cinema that also doubles as a heart-stopping adventure, and we should be glad we have access to it in any manner.
