TIFF 2021 Film Review: The Rescue
The Rescue delves into a renowned story of impossible odds and moral triumph
Kicking off TIFF’s documentary slate is Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi’s The Rescue, a deeper look at the daring mission to save 12 children and their soccer coach from a flooded cave in Thailand. A film naturally picking up the mantle of the filmmakers’ Oscar-winning Free Solo, it’s a rousing tale of humanity that crescendoes into an unbelievable climax of selfless individuals coming together.
Husband and wife documentarians Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vaserhelyi have a type when it comes to their subjects: daring superhumans who overcome overwhelming odds to accomplish see-it-to-believe-it acts of the unthinkable. In 2018, Chin and Vaserhelyi helmed the Oscar-winning Free Solo, covering climber Alex Honnold’s death-defying ascent of the 3,200-foot-tall El Capitan in Yosemite without the assistance of ropes or safety equipment. Their new documentary, The Rescue, tells a different tale of unbelievable daring, injecting cinematic blood and insight into a world-renowned story. Where Free Solo combined edge-of-your-seat spectacle with a surprising amount of introspection on Honnold himself, The Rescue similarly goes beyond just the logistics and execution of a daring operation. An account of deep moral fortitude, the film tells the tale of those who answered the call - across borders - to rescue a dozen children from almost certain death.
The story is one that almost everyone knows: In the summer of 2018, the Wild Boar soccer team - comprised of a dozen young boys and their coach - found themselves trapped in Tham Luang, a winding and intricate cave system in Northern Thailand. The well-traversed caves were considered the kids’ “playground,” but when a deluge from an early monsoon season flooded their exit, the team was pushed farther and farther back into the dark recesses of the labyrinthine tunnels, rapidly filling with water. The local rescue - soon aided by brave individuals from all around the globe - would become a worldwide sensation.
“[The Rescue] is a rousing tale of humanity that crescendoes into an unbelievable climax of selfless individuals coming together.”
There’s no small amount of wizardry surrounding The Rescue. Unlike Free Solo, which was planned and shot in painstaking coordination with Alex Honnold, even going so far as debating the moral implications of possibly filming their friend’s grisly death, The Rescue is a different beast altogether. Chin and Vasarhelyi had no first-hand accounting of the desperate attempts to save the Wild Boar team; instead, much of the doc is assembled from second-hand footage, intricate computer graphics, and its humanizing talking-head interviews. Without access to any of the rescued boys or their families, it does - at times - feel like The Rescue is missing a crucial element of the story, but its pacing and narrative prowess is impeccable. Setting up the terrifying complications and daunting statistical odds, the film effectively conveys the operation’s enormous stakes.
The Rescue, however, is nothing without its human element. Hitting upon the same appeal and endorphin release as an “assembling the team” montage, the film lets its interview subjects tell the story. Deftly shifting among the perspectives of Thai Navy SEALs, British cave divers, American specialists, and a Thai nurse-slash-translator named Amp Bangngoen, The Rescue resists the urge to railroad its interviewees into a pure recounting; in turn, it never loses sight of the unique personalities of these disparate samaritans. Amidst the chaos and scramble, even a little romance shines through as the documentary details an affecting little courtship between two of our players.
“…The Rescue resists the urge to railroad its interviewees into a pure recounting; in turn, it never loses sight of the unique personalities of these disparate samaritans.”
The two rescuers who get the most screen time are the Brits: retired firefighter Rick Stanton, a 60-year old hobbyist who specializes in cave diving, and John Volanthen, a professional diver and accomplished retrieval expert. As the clock ticks for the trapped boys and their coach, it slowly dawns upon the two that they just might be the only ones with the skillset to pull off this rescue. And, of course, the main event for The Rescue doesn’t disappoint. Involving a hare-brained Hail Mary that’s just crazy enough to work (the particulars of which I won’t spoil here), the actual mission tackles the nigh-impossible task of preventing the kids from drowning during a long, tightrope journey to safety. And even with the focus on Stanton and Volanthen, The Rescue never forgets that there was the help of countless others that made it all possible - Chin and Vasarhelyi often cut to the Tham Luang basecamp, where large, anxious crowds eagerly await to lend a helping hand.
It’s absolutely riveting stuff. A moving tribute to what humans can accomplish in the name of the common good, The Rescue finds benevolent souls discarding ego, fear, and self-interest to risk it all for people they don’t even know - a tale of collective gumption and selfless heroism for the ages. It might be hackneyed, corny, and overly saccharine to say so, but during these dark and divided times, this is the exact kind of story we need right now.
