In Hollywood, most films tell stories. But not ‘Here’.

Adapted from a conceptual graphic novel by Richard McGuire, the perspective on each page is the same – the living room of a century-old American home – while rectangular panels within each frame reveal actions from different years, if not entirely separate eras. ‘Here’ is about an idea.

Have you ever sat in a place—maybe a hotel room, a park bench, or a remote open space—and wondered what happened there before? How many people have kissed in that exact spot? Or fought, or fell in love? And what does that say about the human experience, that people can be connected by common actions, and that places can hold both memories and secrets?

There are deep thoughts to be found down such rabbit holes, and a film version of “Here” points roughly in the right direction, but gets distracted by a handful of much shallower threads — namely the disappointingly generic lives of four families living in the same room at different times. Director Robert Zemeckis reunites with “Forrest Gump” screenwriter Eric Roth and that film’s stars, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and clumsily replicates the fixed-camera conceit in what plays like an extended visual effects experiment.

For Zemeckis, the question isn’t how many existential truths he can squeeze into (or out of) a traditional New England living room, but whether he can get away with manipulating the ages of his actors on screen for more than half a century. Technically, that’s now possible, even if the results look anything but natural, adding yet another distancing tool to the already confusing assortment of events.

From “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” to “The Polar Express,” Zemeckis’ superpower has always been his pioneering spirit, while his kryptonite has a penchant for unearned sentimentality. “Here” fits right into that pattern, as Zemeckis devotes his energy not to creating fully dimensional characters, but to furthering the kind of “digital makeup” that Martin Scorsese used to rejuvenate the cast of “The Irishman” , effectively deflating the project of “The Irishman.” exactly what he wanted to celebrate: life.

‘Here’ begins with fleeting images of the house where it all happens, viewed through a series of neatly framed rectangles, before taking us back more than 65 million years to a time when dinosaurs identified this clearing as a decent place to lay their eggs . Then along comes an asteroid (or maybe it’s a volcanic eruption), followed by a time-lapse ice age that swells and thaws in seconds.

It’s hard not to be reminded of ‘The Tree of Life’ at this moment: there Terrence Malick reflected on how lives that feel so important to those who experience them can seem insignificant in the context of creation, dinosaurs and the enormous magnitude of time. McGuire tried something similarly radical in his book, expanding the comic book form. Instead of telling a sequential story, he brought together different time periods into a single scene, allowing complete strangers to echo each other’s thoughts and actions within a shared space.

Most “Here” viewers won’t have been exposed to McGuire’s graphic novel, and even those who have will notice that Zemeckis and Roth are using a different strategy. The film is less about finding unexpected connections than crafting clever transitions as they attempt to align the arcs of multiple generations. Their purpose is simple: to help make logical sense of a complex non-linear assortment of scenes. And yet the strategy of overlapping frames tends to blur the lines between the different families involved, trapping us in a CG snow globe as virtual seasons change and time marches across the wide bay window. Although our view outside is limited to the colonial mansion across the street, many of the characters’ dreams lay outside these walls.

John and Pauline Harter (played by Gwilym Lee and Michelle Dockery) are the first couple to occupy the house, which appears to have been built in 1907. Pauline is constantly worried about her husband who has his head in the clouds, a reckless aviator whom she fears. will crash one day. Without giving away the fate of this early 20th century family, it must be said that there is no point in worrying in ‘Here’. In fact, it can be punished ironically, as if to show that obsessing over the future is the surest way to miss the present.

That attitude extends to Hanks’ anxious character, Richard Young, who gives up a painting career to provide for his family. Little Richie has not yet been born when his father Al (Paul Bettany) and three-month pregnant mother Rose (Kelly Reilly) agree to buy the two-story house for a whopping $3,400 in 1945. It will not change hands again for another. 60 years, making the Young family and their three children the people we see most often, while the African Americans who buy it from them and the indigenous tribe who lived there long ago feel largely symbolic – the dramatic equivalent of recognizing native land.

When Hanks first appears, digitally aged to look like he did in his “Bosom Buddies” days, it gives some focus to what can feel like an endless PowerPoint presentation. When he introduces his teenage girlfriend Margaret (Wright) a few scenes later, their movie star status is a clue that we should pay attention – not to the hideous-looking face replacement technology, which looks more like hi-definition Sims than actors’ younger selves, but for these two characters.

As with Richard Linklater’s “Boyhood,” a longitudinal look at so many milestones in an American family invites us to reflect on the universality of those experiences. Yet “Here” lacks the kind of specificity that could elevate such scenes beyond mere cliché, placing the burden on composer Alan Silvestri (another “Forrest Gump” veteran) to deliver the emotion. While it’s true that much of life takes place in living rooms, Roth hijacks events that should take place elsewhere to stage a birth, a death, a wedding and three sex scenes in the same room where Christmas and Thanksgiving are celebrated.

Zemeckis gives everything a slightly corny, Currier and Ives-esque feel (especially in several colonial-era vignettes featuring Ben Franklin), as if competing with vintage Saturday Evening Post covers to capture a typical American family to lay. But where he has placed his static camera – at a slight angle, with the couch facing the screen – suggests a much more ubiquitous visual reference: that of the classic sitcom.

The blocking continually reinforces that model, and because Zemeckis doesn’t cut or do close-ups, he forces his actors to approach the lens when he wants us to see their faces. Ninety-four minutes later, the director finally chooses to unlock his camera and pan around to observe a key moment between two characters. If Zemeckis had built “Here” as a museum installation rather than a movie, the fixed POV probably would have made sense. But we came to be moved, and for that to work, the camera has to do that too.