In a film industry quick to make polarizing classifications — you’re either a hackneyed Michael Bay or an artsy David Lynch — director Steven Soderbergh is an interesting case. Lauded as the next big thing when he was just 26, after making “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” Soderbergh spent the next decade rejecting all the opportunities his acclaim afforded him and making projects that ranged from deeply personal to deeply disturbing.

1998’s underrated “Out of Sight” allowed him to bring some of his French New Wave sensibilities to decidedly mainstream Hollywood fare (a craft he nearly honed to perfection in “The Limey” the next year), leading Soderbergh’s subsequent efforts to try to find a compromise between the two.

The heartwarming schmaltz of “Erin Brockovich” was nicely offset by the didactic streak in “Traffic” in 2001, and the veritable vanity fair that was “Ocean’s Eleven” was countered by the meta-movie stylings of “Full Frontal.”

Soderbergh’s latest, “Solaris,” seems to go out of its way to defy not only genre but also stylistic classifications. Is it a ghost story, science fiction, action-adventure, romantic or psychological thriller? Is it Friday night popcorn fluff or snooty art-house intellectualism? The answer to both questions is, well, yes.

It says much about Soderbergh’s merit as a director that these conflicting tendencies remain largely inconspicuous, as we are easily enveloped in what quickly becomes an intriguing conflict. George Clooney (“Ocean’s Eleven”) plays Dr. Chris Kelvin, a psychologist beckoned to a remote space station outside of the titular planet Solaris after receiving a cryptic S.O.S. message.

Upon his arrival, Chris finds the ominous remains of a bloodbath, with little indication as to who or what caused it. Remaining crew members Snow (Jeremy Davies, “Secretary”) and Helen Gordon (Viola Davis, “Traffic”) only offer him warning that everyone on board is being or has been haunted by a “visitor,” usually taking on the form of someone deceased and/or near and dear to the visited.

More a living, breathing being than a planet, Solaris sends Dr. Kelvin a visitor in the form of his dead wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone, “Ronin”). Through flashback we learn of Chris and Rheya’s whirlwind courtship, romance, marriage, dysfunction and Rheya’s eventual suicide after her husband walked out on her.

Naturally, Chris has never forgiven himself for the incident, and he believes he can rectify his mistake with the present incarnation of his wife. As the psychological screws turn, though, Rheya realizes she is not the same woman Chris knew on Earth, and Chris must choose between his rational response and his heart’s desire.

Working off a terse yet effective screenplay (which he penned based on Stanislaw Lem’s novel), Soderbergh expertly communicates Chris Kelvin’s sense of profound loss and helplessness through visual storytelling. Frequent use of the hand as a symbol suggests the inherently tactile nature of memory, as Rheya often asserts that she has memories of experiences with Chris but no memories of actually having lived through the experiences.

Like the similarly extraordinary “Memento,” “Solaris” poses the existential query: What is life if we can’t remember it? The film addresses this problem from many angles and with appropriate ambiguity, mainly through Soderbergh’s elliptical editing and Cliff Martinez’s gorgeously ambient score.

Soderbergh’s New Wave proclivities again come out in the sort of deliberately physical acting style he draws from McElhone. His camera explores the sculpture-like qualities of her face, but it doesn’t quite know what to do with Clooney’s.

Saying that he’s skated by purely on his good looks is a bit of an exaggeration (he’s more than proven his acting chops in “Three Kings” and “O Brother Where Art Thou?”), but Clooney’s skills as a dramatic actor are sorely lacking in “Solaris.” Magnifying this problem is the fact that so much of the dramatic thrust depends on our sympathy for him and his lost wife, stemming from our initial interest in their romance.

Regrettably, Clooney and McElhone fail to generate any real chemistry, as Clooney seems lost whenever Soderbergh’s steady-cam looms around his face, refusing to act as a mere receptacle for his trademark quip-and-smile. Although Soderbergh infuses “Solaris” with insightfully developed themes and conundrums that explore the very meanings of love and existence, a simple casting decision prevents it from taking its rightful place in the pantheon of sci-fi classics.

Grade: A/B