Short of being on stage with Billie Eilish or actually being Billie Eilish, the dazzling concert film (with a mouthful of a title) "Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)" is as close as you can get to the 24-year-old Grammy winning pop sensation.

"Titanic" filmmaker James Cameron, who shares directorial credit here with Eilish, uses fully immersive 3D technology to showcase Eilish's stage show behind her 2024 album "Hit Me Hard and Soft."

And it's not just the onstage action. Cameron and crew place cameras inside the road case in which Eilish is wheeled to the stage, so we can see her view as she peeks out into the crowd through a tiny view hole. There are cameras underneath the stage, catching Eilish shuffling around between stage positions in between songs. And there's the handheld camera Eilish wields on stage, which she points at audience members and holds high above her head, and at one point lays down on the stage and hovers over, singing "Bad Guy" directly into it as it — and thereby the audience — stares straight up at her.

It's technically audacious and totally absorbing filmmaking, and the use of 3D is so remarkably rendered it's like there's nothing at all between audience and performer. (The movie is absolutely worth seeing on the very best 3D screen possible.)

Cameron also includes behind-the-scenes vignettes with Eilish, sometimes about her art and artistry, sometimes about petting dogs, and sometimes about the making of something viewers have just seen. To wit: viewers see show opener "Chihiro" and then immediately after they see how it was filmed, and the input Eilish had into helping to visualize the experience. Cameron listens to and fully respects her suggestions; he knows who's in charge.

It helps that Eilish is a dynamo performer and the stage show is a jaw-dropper. The movie's performance was captured at Manchester's Co-op Live (it's the same arena where Harry Styles' recent concert movie was filmed).

Eilish is a poised performer with a gift for connecting with her fans. Those fans can be seen sobbing through the entirety of the concert while screaming along to every word; a neat-o trick Cameron pulls is every time he pushes in on a fan, you can hear that individual on the soundtrack, shouting the words back at Eilish.

The stage she performs on is a large rectangle situated at the center of the arena, fitted with LED lights throughout. So the stage itself becomes another screen, which Cameron films along with all the other screens in the arena, the ones in fans' hands. (Phones are super annoying at concerts, of course, but the visual element they add here, all lighting up in the crowd with the same colors as the stage lighting at the same time, is undeniably cool.)

Eilish is cool and collected as a performer, in control of her energy and her breath, as well as her voice, which we see her working out with a vocal coach over FaceTime. The backstage elements and bits where Cameron interviews his subject are all additive, and help lend a greater understanding of Eilish and the way she expresses herself through her music and performance. That brings viewers closer to her both as an entertainer and as an individual.

"Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)" — it's "The Englishman Who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain" of concert film titles — is an extraordinary document of one of the defining pop artists of our time. As impressive as it is, it never overwhelms Eilish, or becomes bigger than her. It's a massive pop spectacle at a human scale.

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'BILLIE EILISH — HIT ME HARD AND SOFT: THE TOUR (LIVE IN 3D)'

Grade: A

MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong language and suggestive references)

Running time: 1:54

How to watch: In theaters May 8

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