“A Soap,” the debut feature by Danish director Pernille Fischer Christesen, almost never leaves the apartments of its odd couple of young neighbors. Upstairs, Veronica, a timid male-to-female pre-op transsexual, mopes and pops pills. Below, Charlotte, a brassy semi-divorcée, churns through bedmates and barely unpacks her moving boxes. This tragicomedyof their hardship sisterhood, which unspools at Quad Cinema starting today, is too predictable and slight, despite some well-observed acting.

Veronica’s malaise stems from not yet being a sister — bodily, at least. A slim figure (David Dencik) in a wig with bangs, she hides out in her near-dark apartment watching American soap operas on television. She awaits welfare approval of her operation (ah, Scandinavia), kept company by a dog named Miss Daisy. Her only other visitors are johns whom she services in-house, sometimes ineptly, and her mother (Elsebeth Steentoft), who keeps her visits a secret from her disapproving husband.

Veronica’s pity party is balanced by the more vivacious Charlotte, played with an appealing arm-swinging brusqueness by Trine Dyrholm. One day, Charlotte walked out on her bewildered husband (Frank Thiel), a freshly minted hospital resident, days before buying a house. She owns and apparently operates a hair salon, though the only evidence is the freebie cosmetics she gives to Veronica.

The two first meet when Charlotte needs to move her bed and proceeds to waste no time in carelessly insulting Veronica’s fraught gender status through her tone-deaf party gal sense of humor. But she makes amends in dramatic fashion when she rescues her neighbor from a suicide attempt. During the ensuing hospital stay, Charlotte takes care of Veronica’s spoiled dog.

That’s a lot of drama for two condos, and Mr. Fischer must know it. Borrowing a page from his countryman, the director Lars von Trier (“Breaking the Waves,””Dogville”), he punctuates the movie with semi-ironic conspiratorial voiceovers about the plot so far, delivered over recaps in black and white. He also drops a couple of glimpses of the outside world through a gauzy shot of tree blossoms that a daytime drama might use to signal a break for commercials.

The idea, also attempted in a number of European movies like Julie Lopes-Curval’s “Toi et Moi” and some of Pedro Almodóvar’s work, is to acknowledge the soapy plot elements but still harness their oomph. The device might be effective if only “A Soap” had a more nuanced sense of irony or some tonal dexterity. Indifferently shot, always a bit cramped, the film feels too much like a trudge.

To a certain extent this befits the emotional rut of the two neighbors. When Charlotte, during one visit, dryly snipes at the overblown dialogue of Veronica’s favorite soap, the tension suggests how her superficial engagement and her neighbor’s hypersensitivity have each fostered isolation and resentment. Charlotte seems to see drunken visits by her husband as opportunities to provoke a fistfight, as if that might confirm or produce real passion. For her part, Veronica baits her mother into confronting the father who’s disowned her, as if that would ever happen.

But the pair’s tiffs and reconciliations have a predictable volatility, especially when compressed without the benefit of watching the film as a serial — a soap opera — over several weeks. Wounded and benighted Veronica finds her assertive side; Charlotte lashes out one last time before understanding the concept of civility. Maybe these two are just right for each other after all, maybe they’re more than friends, etc.

Which brings up the film’s lazy portrayal of Veronica’s sexuality. The experimental hook-ups between the two are a little too conveniently rooted in a vague idea of Veronica as being confused. The resulting tension is a soap-opera shortcut that short-changes the character, which is a pity given Mr. Dencik’s ability to convey subtle shifts in mood when called upon.

“A Soap” gives up before exploring whether life can have the drama of a soap without the catharsis. It’s no surprise when the pair of wounded souls ultimately make the right decisions. Abandoning the more difficult aspects of its characters, the movie gets to have its soap cake and eat it, too, which is about as appetizing as it sounds.

nrapold@nysun.com