Layers of hurt and pieces of a puzzle peel away over the course of Kôji Fukada’s “Love Life,” a forlorn and downbeat drama with dissonant dramedy touches.

It’s intriguing yet so slow and quiet as to test one’s patience, duller than his manga adaptation, “The Real Thing,” and something of a “Yes, and?” letdown.

A couple preps for a celebration, but we don’t know what it is that’s being celebrated.

Wife Taeko (Fumino Kimura of “Love for Beginners”) dotes on their six year old, Keita, accepting his many challenges to play “Othello” with him.

Husband Jirô (Kento Nagayama of “The Pass: “Last of the Samurai”) does the cooking and decorating. And he’s arranged for some friends at work to stage a little display with balloons waving placards that spell out “Congratulations.”

She interrupts her day to rush out and mediate another dispute between the homeless and someone who’s antagonized them. That’s her job, working with social services for the homeless. He has work in another state social service office.

Something is riding on this party, the first since their wedding. There’s bad blood with his parents — his father, in particular.

And his co-workers, organizing those placards, are a tad put-out when Yamazaki (Hirona Yamazaki) from the office insists on taking part. We hear (or read the English subtitles) the first whispers about what might be a little “off” here.

Yamazaki was Jirô’s ex. “He cheated on her” with Taeko, the woman he just married. And she’sthe one bringing the balloons.

Taeko’s son is from a previous marriage. Her first husband walked out on her.

Even though the party seems to come off, despite the clouds hanging over it, his Dad uses the first opening he hears to lash out at the “cast off (second hand)” wife. His apology isn’t all that impressive, but eventually the evening starts to seem like a success,” acceptance” at last.

Until, that is, the child has an accident. That tragedy tears at the couple as her ex, Park Shinji (Atom Sunada), shows up and emotionally-stunted Jirô starts wondering about the beautiful Yamazaki he wronged to marry Taeko.

Fukada picks at the emotionally raw parents via the tactless police inquiry. “Why didn’t you adopt the boy?” the cops ask Jirô.

Taeko wants to bring the body “home,” to an apartment that belongs to his folks, before the funeral. And that flips his mother out. “What will the NEIGHBORS say?”

And things continue to unravel from there, as we’re shown a Japanese funeral interrupted by out-of-character explosions of grief, the stunted way the husband can’t make eye contact and a bereft mother and wife staggers on in shock, not comforted by a culture not known for its hugging. At all.

Fukada gets caught up in the layers of connection and little revelations that entangle these people in a large web of regret, duplicity and impulse control. But he gives us little feel for the characters and no reason to empathize with them despite all we see them going through.

Truth be told, the tragedy is potentially wrenching, and then all but abandoned.

Several good scenes resonate, and one sublime scene stands out — Taeko’s heartfelt confrontation with the man who ditched her and their son, acted-out in sign language, because Park Shinji is deaf and mute.

But “Love Life” doesn’t coalesce into anything deeper than “Everybody’s dealing with something” and “Life’s a mess that only gets messier.” And in the end, this quiet drama — stumbling into near comedy for the finale — is just pointless enough to pass for “dull.”

Rating: unrated

Cast: Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Hirona Yamazaki and Atom Sunada.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Kôji Fukada. An Oscilloscope Labs release.

Running time 2:05