Chances are you were one of the many captivated by headlines emerging from Thailand’s Chiang Rai province in 2018, when 12 young soccer players and their coach were trapped for weeks in the flooded Tham Luang cave system. Even so, prepare to shed a tear or two when you first glimpse those boys’ smiling faces in the “The Rescue” peering gratefully out of the darkness at the first beam of light they’ve seen in 10 days. It’s an astonishing piece of footage that was broadcast all over the world, but it packs an extra wallop in the context of this documentary, offering a moment’s sweet relief — a much-needed breather — in a story whose happy ending was anything but foreordained.
That story began on June 23, 2018, when celebrating members of the Wild Boars soccer team entered Tham Luang, a favorite stamping ground, not realizing that the…