TIFF 2021: The Rescue Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

In 2018, the world watched as rescue efforts for 12 young Thai soccer players and their coach after intense monsoon rains trapped them in a cave. For 16 days continuous updates were reported about scattered plans to cave dive and explore various methods of ensuring that as many survived the ordeal as possible. Thailand government and Thai Navy Seals spearheaded the efforts, however, it was the ability of a British philanthropist who was able to quickly organize some of the world’s best cave diver hobbyists that made the difference in combating the looming ticking clock for survival. The Rescue is a documentary telling the intimate story of the men that began as enthusiasts of a highly specific and peculiar sport and emerged as heroes who managed to preserve not only 13 lives but the hope of an entire nation.

With The Rescue, filmmakers Elizabeth Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (Free Solo) portray from beginning to end the complete journey with unseen camera footage from many who were involved in the rescue attempt alongside interviews from both the diver’s and the Thai perspectives to help narrate the harrowing endeavor. The documentary examines each of the diver’s backgrounds and entry points into the sport of cave diving further emphasizing the massive weight and expectations that each carried with them every time they embarked on venturing through the four-kilometer cavern.

The cleverness of the documentary lies with its pacing which falsely lures audiences into a sense of familiarity with the storytelling and language of how the documentary will flow before revealing the true impact of the circumstances that these men stepped into. In its opening moments, The Rescue unfolds like many documentaries, setting the foundation for a very public and historically recognized story while hinting at its potential to inform the audience of further details that were never known until now. It’s at this point, where the film truly takes a much more meaningful turn as you are introduced to the story’s protagonists, a group of middle-aged white men who use cave diving as a weekend activity but because of their vast knowledge and experience in this specialized field, they immediately become the highest-ranking civilians, more specifically, volunteers, that are capable of surpassing anyone else’s efforts to save these kid’s lives. It is through this lens where the narrative truly finds its stride as the divers wrestle with their ability to assist in rescuing these lives versus their will to do so because of the danger. The conflict is rife throughout the story and is something that continually hangs over these men until the very end.

The Rescue takes a fairly straightforward recounting of a worldwide event and display it from the perspective of basic human emotions and conflict that force a group of experts to determine how far they are willing to use the talents they have spent a lifetime cultivating.

In the end, The Rescue is an outstanding documentary that fully shapes a feel-good story through adrenaline-induced storytelling focusing on those who lived it while inspiring all who endured its adventure.

still courtesy of TIFF

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