Thirteen Lives trailer: Ron Howard’s Thai Cave rescue drama gets thrilling first look

Amazon Prime Video and United Artists have just released the trailer for Thirteen Lives, which stars Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell and Joel Edgerton in this gripping true story based on the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue. The film, which hits theatres for a one-week exclusive run on July 29th before hitting Prime Video on August 5th (globally), is directed by Ron Howard. Here, the veteran director aims for a gritty, reality-based approach with this drama, which looks radically different than anything he’s tried before. I was on hand at a virtual trailer launch event earlier this week, which, in addition to the trailer reveal, featured Howard, Mortensen, Farrell and other cast members explaining their approach.

For those who may not recall the incident, in 2018, a junior soccer team and their coach were trapped in a cave that flooded due to heavy rains, trapping them inside. As the title explains, thirteen lives were at stake, and miraculously all of the boys and their coach were rescued thanks to the efforts of the Royal Thai Navy SEAL team, with the two casualties on the mission coming from their ranks. Notably, the SEAL team refused any efforts to evacuate them before every single civilian was out, and Howard said during the event that this was his tribute to them.

The film’s cast is a mixture of Thai actors and western stars, all of whom play people involved with the rescue. The Thai cast includes Vithaya Pansringarm of Only God Forgives and Thai heartthrob Sukkolawat Kanaros. As seen in the Thirteen Lives trailer, the Western cast is headed up by Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell, who play civilian divers Rick Stanton, and John Volanthen, who played leading roles in the rescue. Joel Edgerton plays Richard Harris, a cave diver and anesthetist who also took a prominent role in the rescue.

During the Q&A, it was noted that the actors had to participate in some gruelling training to prepare for their on-screen dives. Colin Farrell pointed out the film was shot during the pandemic but that during his two weeks of quarantine, he was able to FaceTime with Volanthan, who he plays, peppering him with all of the questions he needed answered. Once they were on set, Stanton and Volathan were actually there as advisors, and Farrell found it beneficial to dig into the psychological aspect of the rescue.

He said he appreciated “the two lads being there on the set, just for my comfort levels personally, and also constantly going to them as reference. Like, what did you think here? Do you remember when that happened? Who went first? What took place then and also to kind of to try and find out what they were feeling and what they were thinking, not just during the dive, but at night, when the village quietened down a little bit outside the cave, and they were going to bed. Did they sleep, and how did they sleep? And, you know, were they having nightmares? And there was all kinds of personal and psychological questions that we could ask of them, which was just, for me, it was hugely important and, and incredibly beneficial.”

To Ron Howard, working with the actual divers, Jason and Rick, reminded him of working with the astronauts on Apollo 13. “I would look over at either Jason or Rick, and I would say, my God, these men actually did this.”

During the Q&A, Mortensen recalled that his training taught him that during dives, the most important thing was to stay calm. “Rick kept telling me, remember to just breathe calmly, just control your breathing.” He adds, “and you don’t want to use up all your air. The more nervous you are, you’re breathing shallow, then you use up all your air and also there’s situations where you can get snagged or something goes wrong. You wanna be able to think calmly and that has to do with breathing.” He adds, “there was a lot of places that were so narrow that you had to just wiggle through. Sometimes you had to take your tank and push it through, take it off while you’re under water, without disconnecting from the air, then go through this wiggle area and then put the tank on: do this all calmly. And we had two tanks, you know, and if something went wrong with one, just be calm, don’t freak out because you can drown in a few seconds. Once you freak out and you swallow a little water you’re done, and even though it’s a movie you’re in this place (where) nobody can get to you fast enough.”

Overall, the Thirteen Lives trailer looks great and seems to be a solid return to form for Ron Howard. Thirteen Lives comes out in theatres via United Artists Releasing on July 29th, followed by a global launch on Prime Video a week later, on August 5th.