Thirteen Lives Wades Timidly through a Breathtaking Survival Story
The Tham Luang cave disaster of 2018 is one of the rare instances in recent history where almost everyone remembers exactly where they were when they first heard the news. That summer, headlines relentlessly relayed increasingly grim updates on an adolescent soccer team that became stuck in a labyrinthine Thailand cave when it unexpectedly flooded. Every day, reports related exactly how long the kids and their coach had been trapped in there. It had been a week without food for the 11-16-year-olds, they declared. Before we knew it, it was two. This captivating incident was so memorable, so high-stakes and so unlikely, that it practically begged to be adapted into a riveting survival blockbuster. And if there’s anyone who’s up for that task, it’s Ron Howard, the director who helmed the adrenaline-pinching space-thriller Apollo 13 and nauseating shipwreck disaster In the Heart of the Sea.
Thirteen Lives chronicles the Tham Luang cave incident and, more specifically, the efforts that went into rescuing the 13 people trapped inside. The film revolves mostly around British rescue divers Richard Stanton (Viggo Mortensen), a gruff no-nonsense bloke, and the sensitive, gold-hearted and puppy-eyed John Volanthen (Colin Farrell), as they race against the clock to get the boys out.
But Richard and John quickly realize that this isn’t simply a matter of diving into Tham Luang and swimming back out with the boys. Getting to the area where the team is sheltering takes six hours—one way. For some of the world’s most experienced divers. How could they possibly expect preteens, kids, to make the journey back without panicking and drowning?
Just as the rescue mission was never going to be easy, neither was dramatizing the story. Over two-and-a-half hours, Howard juggles a myriad of issues. There’s the central question of how Richard and John are going to make this impossible rescue possible. But then there’s the issue on everyone’s minds: How are the boys holding up after weeks of no food? How about their parents? What efforts are the locals making to help out? And what issues face the government?
Most of Thirteen Lives is told from Richard and John’s perspective, which makes the whole thing feel oppressively one-sided—especially when a lot of the film’s tedious runtime comprises the two swimming back…and forth…and back…and forth…and back again. Maybe we don’t see the six-hour swim in real time, but it sure feels like we do. In fact, we are hardly given insight into the kids’ side of the story at all, which is arguably the most compelling part.