Where does the human spirit go when the body breaks down? Based on a true story, spanish director Alejandro Amenabar’s The Sea Inside is an extended meditation on whether or not life is still worth living with only spirit. At what point, if any, does the pain become so unbearable that we would freely choose to end our lives?

The film begins dreamily with a female voice entreating us to enter its world as we are calmed with images of an serene beach; everything will be alright, it says. In this way, Amenabar establishes a spiritually-infused dreamscape distinct from the corporeal world, a conceit that pervades the film.

Bridging these two spaces is the film’s central character, Ramon Sampedro (Javier Bardem). In his early twenties, Ramon suffered a life-altering accident during a trip to the beach and was left a quadriplegic as a result. After 28 years of living with his condition, he longs to bring his life to an end.

“You learn to cry with a smile,” Ramon says of his experience, and we understand what he means—to varying degrees we have all been the one laying on the bed. Wisely, the filmmakers understand that there is no life without some element of suffering and in accepting this truth, they never condescend to their characters no matter how ridiculous their actions may sometimes seem.

Ramon’s plans meet enormous obstacles because euthanasia is not endorsed by the Spanish legal system, and so Ramon recruits a lawyer, Julia (Belen Rueda), to help him fight for the right to die. His desire appears very resolute despite the seemingly good life he has been able to lead with his brother Jose (Celso Bugallo) and cared for by Jose’s wife Manuela (Mabel Rivera) and son Javi (Tamar Bovas).

While his family plays an important role in Ramon’s life, it is the lawyer, Julia, that proves to be his pulse, and in fact the pulse of the entire film. She is the one Ramon seeks when he conjures up the dream world that is his escape from his everyday limitations, and she is the only one who manages to force him to question his line of action. When she experiences a sudden fall we come to discover that, like Ramon, her body is damaged. In those brief moments of uncertainty, our hearts sink in desperation with Ramon’s as he lays in bed screaming for anyone to come help.

Bardem and Rueda are the highlights of a uniformly strong cast. Limited to using only his face, Bardem manages to communicate a wide spectrum of human emotion with virtually zero self-conciousness. From her very first scene, Rueda stands like pillar holding up an enormous weight that threatens to crush her, and this notion informs even her slightest word and gesture. They both bring their characters to life fantastically, giving the audience reason to feel for them and to follow their story to its end.

Amenabar, only thirty-two, exhibits great directorial instincts. His constantly moving camera navigates the film’s space capturing shot after shot with finely-crafted composition. He takes risks in terms of narrative forms, mingling elements of magical realism and surrealism, previously explored to different ends in his last film The Others (2001).

To its credit, the picture never tries to give us simple answers to its difficult questions, but, instead, uses the parallel characters arcs of Ramon and Julia to settle upon a concentrated rumination on the value of living. “Why can’t I appreciate what I have?” Ramon asks himself breaking into tears late one night. All the way through, as if as an implicit recognition of the difficulty of its subject matter, the film implies that everything will be alright even if the desired ending is not reached.

While not a perfect film—at times, situations seem poorly motivated and at others you wish someone would just turn down the score—The Sea Inside is a movie that manages to stay with you after you leave the theater. Ramon may desire to depart from our world, but you may find yourself not wanting to leave his.