You will never catch me crying during a movie. Yes, I get sad, but I never let tears stream from my eye.

Well, that was the case until I watched the Disney+ Original Movie Clouds.

Clouds is a movie about a young and upcoming singer, Zach Sobiech (Fin Argus), who is suffering from Osteosarcoma—a type of bone cancer. Before the beginning of this true story, I had heard from a few friends that it was incredibly sad and that they had supposedly cried for the whole two hours. I figured I would be the complete opposite.

Once I pressed the play button on my computer, I found myself thinking, “Yeah, I’ll probably get sad, but there is no way I am going to cry.”

The first twenty minutes into the movie, I discovered that I was completely mistaken.

The movie opens up with Zach’s school talent show where he plans to perform after his best friend, Sammy Brown (Sabrina Carpenter), who suffers from extreme stage fright. Right before Sammy plans to go on stage, a group of dancers perform; it is obvious Zach has his focus on one of those dancers.

After all eyes in the theatre were fixated on him, the dancer he was staring at ends up messaging him, asking when Zach is going to ask her out. 

Leading up to the moment where Zach is supposed to be going on his date, a coughing attack starts, and he ends up in the hospital where he is told that his cancer is terminal.

As soon as I heard that, I started crying. Watching his parents cry just made it so much worse. I was surrounded by tears; how could I not cry?

I told myself I was not going to cry for the rest of the movie, and for about an hour and ten minutes, I was doing great.

However, things in Zach’s life only seemed to go up. He ended up accomplishing amazing things most eighteen-year-olds would never be able to do. His music career began, he and his best friend got a record deal, and he had a great relationship with his girlfriend. Although it was extremely obvious what the end of the movie would look like, there was a tiny voice in my head telling me that it could turn out completely different than what was expected.

In the last 40 minutes of the movie, the plot takes a drastic turn. Zach is heavily attacked with his cancer, and he ends up not being able to do much other than just lying on his couch. 

My favorite scene ended up being the scene that happened to make me cry nonstop for the last 40 minutes of the movie.

In one of the last scenes, Zach is performing his original song, “Clouds,” at a mock prom his family and friends held for him. Sammy, who performs one of her original songs before Zach comes on stage, introduces him to the crowd; they go crazy. Cheering him on, he starts to play his song.

I genuinely thought I could stop crying, but I was so wrong. During his performance, Zach begins to cough, and the crowd notices he is not able to continue singing. They start singing his song back to him—Zach describes this moment as “every singer’s dream.” This scene is what really got me. 

Completely caught off guard, I was sitting in my bedroom and sobbing. I tried so hard to hold back these tears, but I couldn’t. Like every true story, the directors pull pictures during the credits of the real people who went through this and tell stories about where they are now. It is noticeable that the cast looks extremely similar to the real people, and it shows directors put a lot of thought into the casting.

Just when I thought it was over, a post-credit scene comes up. All of Zach’s friends are gathered at a lake having fun. Eventually, they ask a stranger to take a picture. When Sammy and his other friends look at the picture, they notice something: a cloud that looks like a Z.

After watching this movie, I was a mess. Yes, the movie was terribly sad, but it also has great lessons that come out of it, just like most Disney movies. I finished it knowing to not take life for granted and to cherish it.

As I shut my computer off, I immediately felt the guilt of not appreciating everything life has to offer. Because I and everyone else can sometimes take the gift of life for granted, Clouds is the perfect movie to shed light on the gift of life.