What I wouldn’t give to live in a world imagined by Daniel D. Davis. As evidenced by “Bonneville,” the new film based on Mr. Davis’s first screenplay, his universe is one of fascinating coincidences and unfailing good luck. Just as the movie’s signature Bonneville — a 1966 convertible, still polished up and looking as sexy as ever — cruises down the open highway, almost anything seems not only possible, but probable.

If “Bonneville,” which was directed by Christopher Rowley, were a comedy or a road trip fantasy, such a contrived universe could serve as an idyllic setting for the adventure imparted here. But something doesn’t quite mix well, as this absurd version of reality hosts the story of a middle-age widower and her two friends who take a road trip to cope with the staggering pain of lost love. As we speed across Northwest America, we recognize the ravishing vistas in the background, brought to vivid life by cinematographer Jeffrey L. Kimball, but they seem to have no bearing on the Hallmark TV special populating the foreground.

Trying mightily to lend the story a balanced emotional center is Jessica Lange, who stars as Arvilla. Her husband has just died, and we meet her on the day she returns from the hospital, enduring the agony of that first night alone. Concerned for their friend are Margene (Kathy Bates) and Carol (Joan Allen), both of whom arrive at Arvilla’s house not long after her stepdaughter, Francine (Christine Baranski) has stormed out. Holding onto an outdated will that has never been legally updated, an irate Francine gives Arvilla a dark ultimatum: Bring her father’s ashes to California for a proper burial at his family’s estate, or lose the house that he has clearly failed to leave in Arvilla’s name.

Mortified by their best friend’s sour twist of fate, Margene and Carol agree to fly with Arvilla from Salt Lake City to California, ashes in tow. But somewhere between their small Idaho neighborhood and the airport, Arvilla turns off the highway and decides to take her husband’s convertible on something of a joyride, spreading his remains along the way, as he had once asked her to do.

For the first few minutes, there is something enlivening about these three women — all apparently strict Mormons — learning how to lower their guards, sampling coffee, and experiencing a little bit of gambling for the first time. Carol, in particular, is presented as a wife and mother badly in need of a vacation, stressed out as she is by Arvilla’s disorganized, take-it-as-it-comes sense of adventure. In fact, it’s in the film’s closing moments, as two of the women reject their structured lives of convenience in favor of a more unpredictable existence, that Mr. Davis offers the movie’s most compelling theme: complacent midlifers learning how to untangle themselves from the suburban safety net.

Yet that solitary shard of sincerity seems buried beneath a haystack of contrived plot points, encounters, and coincidences. When Emmett (Tom Skerritt), a truck driver, ogles the ladies at 60 miles per hour, it’s a believable bit of banter. But when he runs into them again at a gas station, asks them to join him for dinner days later in Las Vegas,

and then arrives in a smart suit and tie, it’s a bit of a stretch. When a young hitchhiker stumbles upon the trio, stranded on Utah’s salt flats, he not only helps them repair a flat tire, but also gives them his iPod and shares his similar tale of a cross-country search for self. And as the Mormons do Vegas, Carol’s one and only go at a slot machine proves quite profitable.

The problem with “Bonneville” is one of traffic congestion. There is so much happening so quickly, so many idealized chance encounters zipping by, that none of these asides in the desert resonate as they should. If we Americans love road trips because they allow us to break free from our routines and learn something about ourselves, then “Bonneville” feels wrong because Arvilla’s rediscovery is forced upon her. Wherever the car goes, it can’t help but collide with something mysterious or magical. It’s not a road trip of seeking, but of reacting.

There are too few movies about the everyday lives of middle-age characters. Indeed, we need more movies with the aim of “Bonneville” to treat the joys and miseries of growing old in modern America. Nine times out of 10, with a cast this good and a message this sincere, you’ll have a touching, triumphant movie. Too bad the fake and frantic “Bonneville” is no. 10.

ssnyder@nysun.com