Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives is a gripping and realistic film adaptation of a miraculous and inspiring real-life tale about overcoming insurmountable odds.
Overall Score: 9/10
Image: Amazon Prime Video
In 2018, the whole world watched on in suspense as news broke of how twelve boys (all members of a junior soccer team) and their assistant coach were trapped inside a cave in Northern Thailand.
Like everyone else, I too was worried and scared. I mean, heck, nobody knew if they were even alive! What followed, however, was nothing short of amazing. In addition to the local authorities and Thai Navy SEALs, ordinary Thai citizens and people from all around the world came to volunteer, offering to help in any way they could. It was an impressive and unified international response, one that ultimately led to the successful location and rescue of the thirteen trapped individuals.
Okay, on to the movie. It’s fairly common for a film like Thirteen Lives to try and add in a little bit of drama. But frankly, I don’t entirely agree with this practice. Sure, while I admit that it can make a film seem more interesting, sometimes it’s best not to mix fact with fiction as it may result in a less-than-accurate retelling of a story or event. Hence, I really like Thirteen Lives as I find that it does a good job of sticking to the facts and that it doesn’t try to over-dramatize things. As a result, it ends up giving itself a much-welcomed realistic feel. In fact (and I do mean this in the best way), watching it never once feels like watching a movie. Instead, it’s like witnessing those actual real-life events unfold right before your very eyes.
I’m just going to skip over the plot as I assume that you already know what happens, but I think that a lot of why the film feels so realistic also comes courtesy of how impressive Thirteen Lives is on a technical level. For me, its many diving sequences are where it shines the most. Through some meticulous camerawork and an incredibly detailed sound design, director Ron Howard and his crew are able to create a sense of fear, danger, and claustrophobia, and they draw you in by making you feel as though you are there diving alongside the on-screen divers. And when combined with an incredibly realistic set, the film gives off the illusion that the characters are really diving through the real Tham Luang cave system. Now, I’m no expert when it comes to any of these things, but I do pay extremely close attention to detail. Therefore, if you can fool me into thinking that you had your actors dive through an actual cave, you’ve definitely done your job.
The performances here are also pretty good. For instance, Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell (who play British cave divers Richard Stanton and John Volanthen respectively) both do a fantastic job of embodying their characters. But here’s what’s interesting: When you think of actors, what comes to mind? Acting, right? Well, that’s not what comes across here as at no point does it seem like Mortensen or Farrell are acting. Rather, it’s as if the two really are the people they’re playing. And to tie this back to my point of how realistic the movie feels overall, a set of performances like this helps significantly in adding to that effect.
So, in conclusion, Ron Howard’s Thirteen Lives is a well-made film adaptation of the Tham Luang cave rescue. It’s thrilling, suspenseful, and altogether very realistic. More importantly, the story Thirteen Lives tells is a testament to what people can accomplish in light of insurmountable odds. This celebration of teamwork and volunteerism shows us that we humans are at our best when we put aside our differences and work together. Humanity is capable of so much more, and it’s unfortunate that it takes a crisis to unite us. But in time, I hope that we’ll all learn the value of cooperation and that we’ll move forward together as a species, because only then can we truly become stronger.
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