Art has an ability to make us think that some characters live, breathe and think beyond the confines of the things we see them saying and doing. For me, this is still impossible to understand, and I’m worried about exploring it too deeply, as I might ruin that living quality around my favorite movie characters. Helen Hunt, however, could have used more work on the subject before she went into the director’s chair.

“Then She Found Me,” directed by and starring Hunt (along with acting assistance from Colin Firth, Bette Midler and Matthew Broderick) follows trying times in the life of schoolteacher April Epner (Hunt). She is newly married to Ben (Broderick), who splits after months of failed attempts to have a baby. The shock causes chaos at her job and sends April’s adopted mother to the grave, and also places her within the eyes of the sympathetic, divorced Frank (Firth). Left by her husband, newly orphaned and dealing with an attractive but troubled rebound prospect, she receives yet another crisis in the form of a message from Bernice Graves (Midler), a local-access TV star who claims to be her birth mother.

As should be clear, the film compresses a whole lot of psychological stress into a very short timeline. Shocks and revelations pile up all the way to the finish, too, making sure that the initial slate of drama doesn’t have to carry the film by itself. And even as you start to predict, based on the “what’s the worst thing that could happen to April at this moment?” principle, the plot still manages to keep its share of surprises while keeping the film from drowning in misery.

The film achieves this, however, at great cost. “Then She Found Me” makes only the most minimal effort toward developing full, rounded characters with the appearance of off-screen lives. April is in every scene, and the supporting characters slide onstage, perform their routines and slide back off. Ben exists as a kind of parody of a passive, neurotic, well-intentioned husband — not exactly the hardest role for already passive, nice guy Broderick. His conversations with April follow a recurring pattern, and it would be easy to forget about him if his actions didn’t keep having plot consequences. Frank, too, seems to end every conversation in the same exasperated walk-off. Even Midler’s Bernice seems to have no cares besides April, coming off as sweet but also giving the creepy sense that there’s nothing else in her life.

The film becomes a series of short acting features, with April and whomever sharing their thoughts for four minutes before the next scene kicks in. This is not to say that this is not amusing or moving, even far longer than it should be. Firth, especially, has a way with frustration and indignation that fills the film with electric energy whenever he raises his voice. Midler plays Bernice with a strength and unflappability that seem like just what April needs. And Hunt herself has lost none of her acting talent or instinct, making April timid but not pitiful, capable of speaking up for herself when she must.

And the exterior-only approach to character also, bizarrely, assists the film’s pace and plotting. With no solid grasp on the people we encounter, it’s difficult to anticipate how they will act or what they will say, and the film can trade off that tension to keep everything uncertain. The scenes’ relative independence, also, partitions the misery, sealing off the emotional scarring from one scene from lingering too painfully into the next. Where this becomes a fatal flaw, however, is in its central character.

Everything April carries around with her never seems to take its toll, but she doesn’t seem formidable enough to justify such resilience. Despite the relentless focus on April, and Hunt’s strong work in making the audience care about her, who she is or why she does the things she does never really comes to the fore. She’s obviously confused about the same questions, but Hunt makes no distinctions between her character’s and the film’s perspective on the world she finds herself in, and, without access to the thoughts of the person we’re watching, it’s difficult to come out of a viewing feeling like anything significant has taken place. And the ending doesn’t help: the film throws up its hands in defeat and lacks the courage to say why.

“Then She Found Me” winds up feeling like a ride on rails at an amusement park: a trip through cardboard exteriors, pleasant and sometimes impressive but, in the end, only making you wonder what’s going on in the back. All kinds of people find April, sure, but the audience never gets its chance.