Starring Éliane Préfontaine. In French, Spanish, and Mandarin, with English subtitles. Rating unavailable

The underlying principle of this gently adventurous movie from Quebec is the unfulfilled potential that humans carry around, whether with deep regret or some kind of sustained hope. It’s a fitting theme for a tale that frequently gestures at profundity without ever quite reaching its goals.

This debut feature from writer-director Sophie Goyette, who has made several well-received shorts, is divided into three parts. Initially, we meet Éliane (Éliane Préfontaine), a fair-haired Montrealer who works birthday parties as a Disney princess. Things haven’t clicked for her since she failed to get into a prestigious music school. In fact, she aced the piano audition, but hit the wall with music theory. “I had never heard of it,” she admits to a sympathetic suburban matron.

Instead of picking up a book, our pouty princess heads to a briefly explored Mexico City, where she gives piano lessons to the small son of a wealthy family. We never see the mom, but Éliane forms a kind of bond with the sad-eyed patriarch (Mexican TV and stage veteran Gerardo Trejoluna). The director’s not particularly interested in what connects them.

Turns out the guy is preoccupied with his own ailing father (Felipe Casanova), and offers to take the older man on a final trip. The third part follows them to an unnamed city in China, although this doesn’t matter much, since they spend most of it in a dark hotel room, quietly discussing generic life problems. There is one arresting sequence. While riding a small train through an underground amusement park, the old-timer wonders why his middle-aged son—who wanted to be a professional photographer—didn’t bring a camera. He doesn’t offer much of an answer, and neither does the movie.

Buried aspirations may be important to these characters, but passivity marks most of the action in Still Night, Still Light. Its original French title, translating as My Nights Will Echo, at least offers the promise of future reverberations. But most sounds in the present tense are disconnected from people here. The credits tell us that Préfontaine is the actual performer of the Chopin prelude used as a theme throughout. But Goyette shoots her from behind, with no hands visible at the piano, in the manner of movies forced to fake on-screen talent. Similarly, the camera often cuts from intriguing wide-screen compositions to empty sky or other blank space. Meanwhile, the actors put out as little as possible. These chilly manoeuvres invite projection of your own thoughts, and can be explained as blows against the empire of narrative expectation. But that doesn’t make them any more rewarding.