I went to interstellar space on Thursday night and the journey nearly brought me to tears.

It wasn’t a dream, but that’s the best way to describe Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity: a beautiful and terrifying dream.

Not only does the film display some of the most groundbreaking special effects in recent memory, it also tells a truly original narrative through a powerful female lead.

Sandra Bullock—all-American and almighty—takes the reins of this mostly one-woman show as medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone. Though it’s apparent she is extremely intelligent, Stone visibly stifles under pressure and seems nervous, especially in comparison to her light-hearted pilot Matt Kowalski (George Clooney).

Stone and Kowalski work as part of a team that attempts to install Stone’s own technology on the Explorer space shuttle, but the mission is aborted when both discover a chain reaction of satellite debris will threaten their lives.

With the destruction of the Explorer, one of the film’s most intense scenes, Stone is cast off into the immensity of space. Rightfully panicked, Stone is lost and alone with depleting oxygen within her suit.

Gravity taps into the anxiety of Space travel that is indifferent and greatly unknown to humanity. For proof, in one shot, we see Stone obscured by darkness as she spins uncontrollably away. As she floats farther she becomes a faint voice within the vast nothingness of space.

Don’t imagine, however, that the film tiredly repeats the same angles with the same ominous space backdrops. Every shot is sweepingly breath-taking and realistic. Amidst Stone’s terrifying and relentless dilemmas is the majesty of Earth from several vantage points. 

If you ever feel small and insignificant just looking from Earth to the night sky, Gravity will make you feel completely irrelevant in the universe’s grand scheme.

Galaxies mutely gaze from light-years away, the Aurora Borealis swirls over the atmosphere and thousands of lights shine from the earth’s surface, representing each human life—safe and unaware of the ordeal taking place above.

Meticulous attention to the detail of each frame, undoubtedly, can be credited to Cuarón’s steadfast direction and editing assisted by Mark Sanger.

Gravity does craft a near-perfect visual for audiences but its sound at work is also crucial to inciting clenches of fear and gasps of disbelief.

While the Explorer becomes useless hunks of metal in space, the music begins to steadily grow in pitch and pace until it reaches a loud point, then abruptly stops. Appropriately, the sound generates the sense of being swallowed by a vortex.

Other distinct sound effects were successful in putting audience members into the minds of the endangered astronauts. A slight breath or the thud of contact with a surface captures the audience in its minuteness.

Bullock’s performance as Stone is nothing short of magnificent. She navigates the complexities of her persona with complete concentration and utter skill.

Without giving too much away, a shot of Bullock following a great deal of tense action embodies all the greatness of this movie. Bullock is curved into an almost child-like position as the gravity holds her afloat. Though the shot only lasts seconds, the effect renders an immediate sense of relief and perfect calm that can be felt in the audience.

Stone herself is a fighter to say the least, with an enemy that can in no-way-shape-or-form be taken out or avoided. It’s do-or-die, sink or swim.

Stone’s struggle to remain alive is complicated further in the form of a daughter, as we come to understand just how broken she was before the mission even started. In this regard, the excessive sentimentality that borders on cheesy—the only true fault that can be found in Gravity—could have been written more subtly.

The moral and heart of the story boils down to not who can survive, but who wants to survive – who has the integrity and willpower to stick out life even when the alternative seems preferable.

Walking out of the theater, I was glad for being alive. Glad to be alive in a time when I can see a paramount movie such as this in all its grandeur on the big screen.

Don’t wait to see Gravity on DVD, on a smartphone or computer in the future. See it now and witness supreme movie-making.