There is nothing worse than being stuck in someone else’s mundane reality. Unless, of course, that person is Juliette Binoche. “The Flight of the Red Balloon,” a film in French (“Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge”) by director Hsiao-hsien Hou, straddles this conundrum in Hou’s attempt to recreate the magic of the classic film “The Red Balloon” of 1957. The original film is a half-hour short that takes viewers through the streets of Paris as a little boy and his father chase after an errant balloon. Hou’s remake is not a “remake” in the sense that it keeps the same plot or premise. “Flight of the Red Balloon” is a feature-length film that focuses on the everyday annoyances in the life of a single mother (Binoche). It starts its tale at the moment Binoche’s character, Suzanne, engages a new nanny for her young son, Simon. The new nanny is Song Fang, a film student from Beijing who almost immediately begins compulsively filming Simon in what she hopes will be a remake of “The Red Balloon.” Focusing on the chaos of becoming part of someone’s life but staying at a distance from the realities of Suzanne’s problems, the film seems to be told from Song’s perspective. Suzanne’s life is immensely complicated. In between rehearsals for the marionette show that Suzanne lends her vocal talents to, she must deal with evicting a dead-beat tenant, finding a lost lease, moving a piano up a flight of stairs, and preparing a second apartment for a daughter in Belgium, who ultimately puts off her return to Paris. One scene in particular illustrates Hou’s fascination with the ordinary. Suzanne asks Song to convert some Super Eight films onto DVD, and Song takes the spools to the film school to convert them. When she brings them back, a five minute scene ensues in which Song and Suzanne disagree as to whether Suzanne owes Song money for the DVDs and the process of converting them. Although these moments accurately simulate real life in a naturalistic way, in the end they feel real to the point of boredom. Binoche, obsessively smoking throughout the film, is energetic, but in a way that is nervous and superfluous. Some of the most magical moments in the film occur during the rehearsals, where Suzanne’s ebullient vocal tones bring the puppets to life. Binoche’s vocal versatility is truly stunning, leaving the audience wishing that this film was more centered on Suzanne’s career than her personal life. Intermixed with the life of Suzanne are moments of magical realism in which a real red balloon appears to follow Simon around Paris. This is the closest the film comes to imitating the 1957 original. The meaning of the balloon, however, is completely changed. Instead of being a symbol of childhood and the magic of a day that can completely revolve around chasing a balloon, the balloon comes to stand for the fleeting weightlessness of childhood that is so quickly replaced by the tedium of adult responsibility. Despite a pleasingly ethereal quality and nostalgic soundtrack, “The Voyage of the Red Balloon” feels like a good idea that sinks under its own introspectiveness.