The key to happiness and a full life in modern China seems to be, to paraphrase Timothy Leary, turn off, tune out, drop in.

As in: Turn off the iPad, tune out the music by removing your headphones and drop in to what’s going on around you.

At least, that’s the message of “The Nightingale,” a sweetly affecting Chinese film about a elderly man who opens his spoiled granddaughter to the analog world during a road trip across rural China. The film is, oddly, directed by a Frenchman (Philippe Muyl), although it is entirely in Mandarin.

It centers on a super-successful family in trouble. Chongyi (Hao Qin) is a famous architect whose work takes him to Hong Kong, Tokyo and other jet-setting cities. He is drifting apart from his wife, Qianying (Xiaoran Li), who has a business career that regularly takes her to Paris. Not only do they rarely see each other, they spend little time with their 10-year-old latchkey daughter, Renxing (Xin Yi Yang), who is being raised, essentially, by the maid, her iPad and iPhone, and not necessarily in that order.

When the maid leaves town for her son’s wedding and both parents are headed abroad for business, they have no choice but to send Renxing to travel with her grandfather Zhu Zhigen (Baotian Li, star of Zhang Yimou’s 1989 film “Ju Dou”), who is making a pilgrimage back to the rural village where Chongyi was raised. He is traveling with his caged nightingale, a symbol of his undying love for his late wife, who is buried in his village.

At first, predictably, little Renxing is a super-brat, a real handful for an elderly man. Her attitude worsens as they get on the wrong bus, get lost and are forced to work their way through the southwestern Chinese province of Guangxi by any means necessary: hitchhiking, boating, hiking through wilderness (including a lovely bamboo forest). They also rely on the kindness of many strangers — good, sturdy rural folk.

And then, just as predictably, Renxing begins to have fun. Offered the chance to fly back home immediately while Gramps keeps going, she refuses.

For whatever reason, “The Nightingale” is a Chinese-French co-production. Muyl made a French version of this film in 2002 as “The Butterfly.” Interestingly, in that film, it was the grandfather who was the curmudgeon and the granddaughter who brought him out of his shell.

Although few would confuse “The Nightingale” with greatness (it’s just way too predictable), production-wise, everything is top notch, especially the cinematography of Sun Ming, who captures some almost epic images of rural Guangxi — makes you want to go there. Also, Li’s quiet strength as the grandfather grounds the film in a gentle, simple and appealing way.

Although anyone could enjoy the movie, perhaps this would be a good first foreign-language film for your middle-school child. However, he or she might find the prospect of a road trip without a properly functioning Apple product to be a “Hunger Games”-like postapocalyptic nightmare.

G. Allen Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ajohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BRfilmsAllen

The Nightingale

Chinese drama. Starring Baotian Li, Xin Yi Yang, Hao Qin, Xiaoran Li. Directed by Philippe Muyl. In Mandarin with subtitles. (Not rated. 100 minutes.)