I knew enough about the Tham Luang Nang Non cave operation to question whether we needed a Hollywood dramatisation directed by Ron Howard (Rush, Frost/Nixon, A Beautiful Mind).

The Wild Boars football team and their young coach were stuck inside for 18 days in 2018, with a depleting oxygen supply and hardly any food as water rose up from a biblical monsoon. Each boy (aged 11-16) had to be sedated using ketamine and carefully manoeuvred like a package along 2.5 miles of the tightest twists and turns. An 11-hour round trip for each 'delivery'. Can you think of a more unlikely, no, impossible rescue? The drama is built in. Just roll back the news reports.

Despite this, and the fact that I can neither swim nor handle tight underground spaces – judging by a panicky experience in Derinkuyu Underground City in 2019 (hello, claustrophobia) – I dived into Thirteen Lives over Christmas. 

It's a workmanlike play-by-play that conveys the mounting jeopardy of the situation and the pivotal role of volunteer cave divers Rick Stanton (an ex-fireman played by Viggo Mortensen) and John Volanthen (an IT consultant portrayed with sensitivity by Colin Farrell).

They hardly cut the figure of action heroes at first glance. Two rough-around-the-edges Brits with a little middle-aged spread who squabble over the last custard cream. But they are extraordinarily good at what they do in these situations, far better equipped than the Thai Navy Seals.

The film begins to tell the story of how they defied the odds while also revealing how slim they knew the chances were at different stages of the rescue. For instance, they estimated that they would lose 10 of the 12 boys by taking the drastic action to anaesthetise them. 

The focus is on the stars, as you would expect – Mortensen and Farrell are as low-key and unfussy as they need to be – but Howard is careful to acknowledge the contribution of an international team (90 divers participated in the rescue, out of which 50 were foreigners).

The director’s attentiveness to cultural sensitivity and accuracy is commendable, whether it’s casting kids from Northern Thailand, honouring retired seal Saman Gunan who died during the rescue or Beiret Bureerak who later succumbed to a blood disease.

And there were thousands of other heroes, from the army and local villagers helping groundwater expert and engineer Thanet Natisri to devise a way to divert water from above, to the farmers who sacrifice their crop harvest to offer a vital outlet for the endless flow (rain was falling at a rate of six inches per hour).

Meanwhile, family members keep vigil. Thai officials deliberate and try to contain panic while poised to point the finger at each other. Governor Naronsack (Sahajak Boonthanakit), incompetent though compassionate, is first in the firing line.

Revered Buddhist monk Phra Khuva Boonchum arrives to perform religious rites, to will the rain to stop (it did) and pray for the wellbeing of the team. And the world's media congregates to collect minute-by-minute updates to sate a transfixed global audience. 

The film does a good job of showing the logistical challenges of the rescue, particularly when doctor Richard 'Harry' Harris (Joel Edgerton) goes against his better judgment and instructs the rescue team how to safely administer the ketamine every 20-30 minutes. Swiftly followed by a dose of atropine to reduce the secretions their passengers could choke to death on. The real Harris said he felt like he was committing "euthanasia" and sullen-eyed Edgerton really draws out the dread in his predicament.

Also, we appreciate how difficult it was for the rescue divers to know whether the boys were still breathing as visibility was so poor and they were desperate not to lose the guideline. The added peril of using adult-sized masks on emaciated boys was an important detail. There were real concerns about the seal breaking, on top of everything else.

What a feature film like this can’t convey is the pitch-blackness of it all. For obvious reasons, so let’s not be too critical here. What is more galling is the lack of emotional insight into those being rescued or their families. Ingredients that would have helped to make Thirteen Lives even more rounded and absorbing. 

The reason for this incomplete picture is rights and securing exclusivity is like an “arms race”. Netflix scooped them for the boys' story, which became the miniseries Thai Cave Rescue. In 2021, a year before Howard's film came out, National Geographic produced a documentary called The Rescue. It featured highlights from 87 hours of on-location Navy Seal footage as well as in-cave reconstructions filmed at Pinewood Studios.

Producer PJ van Sandwijk then approached Howard to make the film adaptation, with the Oscar-winning director choosing to break down the "anatomy of a miracle". Stanton came on board as a technical adviser, to help make the diving scenes look as real as they could be, though they were shot in Queensland. (Credit to Simon Christidis for his underwater camerawork and to cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom.)

But it’s the portrayal of the main characters and their threadbare backstories that I was questioning more after watching The Rescue. In the documentary, Stanton and the others admit to being a slightly awkward breed apart. Some were loners as kids or obsessive to the detriment of personal relationships. Others liken themselves to dispassionate daredevils who have a ruthless degree of focus that overrides any thought of risk to oneself.

Thirteen Lives can’t help but be gripping and suspenseful, even if we know the outcome. But Howard’s film fails to peel back the psyche of these rescue divers and that’s a missed opportunity.

His partly hands-tied approach plus his commitment to authenticity (from VFX to tunnels, underwater sound and props) makes this feel more like a naturalistic documentary or technical re-enactment than the nuanced and more emotionally resonant character study it could have been. That's not to invite melodrama or mawkishness, things Howard was right to avoid.

For a near-complete picture, you’ll just have to watch everything. You can stream Thirteen Lives on Amazon Prime and Apple TV among other platforms.

PS Did you know that the coach Ekapol Chanthawong (played by Teeradon ‘James’ Supapunpinyo) was a trainee of Buddhist Monks at one time, and used his knowledge of meditation to teach the kids to calm themselves and conserve oxygen? Eleven of the boys were later ordained as novice monks at the Wat Doi Wao temple, where they stayed for nine days.