In his poem “The Second Coming,” William Butler Yeats famously wrote, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” This phrase repeatedly came to mind while watching “Saturday Fiction,” the latest film from Lou Ye.

The association arose not because Yeats was writing about the aftermath of World War I or because “Saturday Fiction” takes place on the cusp of the Second. Rather, it is because the Chinese director’s film is frustratingly discursive, at once wooly in its metaphorical tangents and oblique in setting out plot points. The center does not hold.

“Saturday Fiction” stars renowned actress Gong Li playing renowned actress Jean Yu, who’s set to star in a play titled “Saturday Fiction.” Sounds labored, right? 

Yet Mr. Ye plays his meta-card close to the vest. He’s not as self-reflexive as Charlie Kaufman, writer of “Being John Malkovich” and director of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” or the latest Nicolas Cage picture, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.” Still, Mr. Ye tipping his hand doesn’t augur well — particularly for those of us who like our fiction unencumbered by overweening cleverness.

The year is 1941. Shanghai is under Japanese occupation — or, rather, most of it is. The French Concession, a colonial outpost, maintains its independence, as does a British settlement. The glamorously aloof Jean Yu, having achieved fame and fortune after leaving Shanghai, returns to a city transformed by war. The paparazzi and the fans follow her every move. So does a bevy of international operatives.

The ostensible reason for Jean Yu’s arrival is to appear in the play “Saturday Fiction,” the director of which, Tan Na (Mark Chao), is a former paramour. Her ex-husband Ni Zeren (Zhang Songwen) is also in Shanghai, a prisoner of the Japanese. And what about the shady characters hovering around the luxurious Cathay Hotel, an establishment run by Saul Speyer (Tom Wlaschiha) and frequented by Frederic Hubert (Pascal Greggory), a dealer in rare books? None are as they seem. 

The play’s producer (Wang Chuanjun) is engaged in one kind of skullduggery or another, and then there’s the young woman (Huang Xiangli) who attaches herself to Jean Yu and is, likewise, involved in nefarious goings-on. Let’s not forget the elite squad of Japanese spies and/or hitmen, a group fronted by the silky smooth Furuya Saburo (Joe Odagiri). 

If that wasn’t enough, “Saturday Fiction” takes place in the days leading up to Sunday, December 7th.

Tagging the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor isn’t a spoiler. Mr. Ye underlines the chronological trajectory early on, and plays upon our expectations as to how, exactly, his convulsively Byzantine plot will connect with — or, perhaps, set off — “the date which will live in infamy.” All the same, exactitude isn’t Mr. Ye’s wheelhouse. He’s more interested in diffusing the conventions of the spy thriller than in generating tension or suspense.

“Saturday Fiction” works best as an exercise in cinematic style. The giveaway is a reliance on hand-held cameras — a technological anachronism given the time-frame of the narrative — and the repeated (and, ultimately, annoying) contrasts between the artifice of the theater and the consequences of real life. This is a movie with meager human ballast.

The director of photography, Zeng Jian, films the proceedings in a fetching range of silvery grays. The grainy romanticism of his cinematography is, however, stifled by characters who aren’t much more than the sum of their talking points. So much so that when the narrative culminates in a shoot-’em-up bloodbath, we’re left admiring the elegance and concision in which it’s framed, but wondering, all the same, what the fuss is all about. And “Saturday Fiction” is nothing if not fussy.