So I saw the Thirteen Lives movie on Amazon Prime. Ron Howard did a pretty good job focusing on the Thai community and not making it all about the British and Australian divers. (I've previously watched the National Geographic documentary of The Rescue, and it focused mainly on those divers, because they didn't have the rights to the soccer team's story.) Apparently Netflix is coming out with its own version on the soccer team in September, but I've quit them long ago. I will have to consider whether I want to rejoin for a month maybe for this and Knives Out 2.
In Howard's film, we start with the Wild Boar boys finishing a soccer (football) game and discussing the birthday party for Prem, before bicycling to the cave. One boy doesn't go, but he's aware of the others intending to go to the cave. That night, their parents search for them when they don't show up for the party, and we follow the mother of Chai, the youngest boy, as she worries about him. We also see the local governor and his aide, the Thai Navy SEALS, and a water engineer working with villagers and farmers to divert water from the caves.
The British divers do play a prominent role in finding the boys, and coming up with the plan to anesthetize them, but they remain aware that they need to defer to and work with the Thai divers. It's not that the Thai Navy aren't good divers; it's just that their training is for open water diving, and the cave is super tricky to dive, requiring specialized skills. One British diver even takes blessed beads from Chai's mother and tells his more skeptical colleague, "Take it. She's watching." Even if you don't believe in her religion, it's important for you to honor her feelings so she'll feel better about the rescue. They do mention lots of international volunteers helping but thankfully don't discuss Elon Musk and his snitfit. It's pretty good, and the diving feels claustrophobic at parts.
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