What to do about a work like Isaiah Saxon’s “The Legend of Ochi?” A curious little fantasy adventure built around the scruffy titular creature that leads a lonely youth on a magical journey, the film boasts intense attention to detail through impressive practical craft and puppetry that should make for a wondrous cinematic experience. But that craft is unfortunately never able to cover up a prevailing lifelessness.

The acclaimed music video director’s debut feature, which premiered back at the Sundance Film Festival and is produced by A24, does break the heart and pulls on plenty of its strings. Just not in the way that it intends. Ultimately, Saxton’s story struggles to assemble its beautiful parts into a moving whole.

This isn’t for lack of effort, as the aforementioned craft breathes plenty of life into the well-worn path that “The Legend of Ochi” takes us down. You...