The Rescue chronicles the 2018 rescue of 12 Thai boys and their soccer coach, trapped deep inside a flooded cave.National Geographic via Mongrel
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The Rescue
Directed by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Classification PG; 114 minutes
Available at Toronto’s Hot Docs Bloor Cinema and Vancouver’s International Village starting Oct. 8; expanding to other cities Oct. 15
Critic’s Pick
During the summer of 2018, the world was riveted by the saga short-handed to “Thai cave rescue”: 12 boys and their soccer coach trapped inside a flooded cave system, with little hope to make it out alive.
The internationally organized rescue effort provided epic headline-grabbing drama, including a tremendous and rather surprising happy ending, which means that, naturally, movie producers were chomping at the bit to adapt the story. I’ve lost track at this point as to how many films and TV series are in production – last year saw the release of Tom Waller’s limp drama The Cave, and next year promises Ron Howard’s shinier and better-financed Thirteen Lives – but everyone should just stop right now: Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s documentary The Rescue is the be all and end all Thai cave rescue project.
Whereas the directors’ last project, the Oscar-winning free-climbing doc Free Solo, chronicled an open-air kind of anxiety, The Rescue is a claustrophobic exercise in tension, expertly assembled for maximum emotional impact. The film may be traditionally structured – this is a tick-tock thriller chronicling the event from beginning to end, with little room for abstract cinematic detours – but it captures all the human drama and daunting logistics with a sharp, unflinching eye.
Jason Mallinson rappels down industrial site in The Rescue.National Geographic via Mongrel
By focusing not so much on the governmental action as the individual response – the film’s primary subjects are the foreign-national diving experts who flew to Thailand to hatch a plan – Chin and Vasarhelyi shape an overwhelming story into something more intimate and to-the-heart devastating. Sure, some of the filmmakers’ re-enactments give off an unnecessary whiff, but their skill in editing together talking-head interviews with news reel clips and rarely seen in-the-cave footage is genuinely marvellous. Remember this when you’re watching Ron Howard trying to spelunk into the same drama next year.
In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a Critic’s Pick designation across all coverage.