Where both compared situations remain openly expressed and related as a comparison, the primary classification is simile, even if the resemblance itself is highly complex.
Open comparison: “His indecision is like someone setting one foot forward and another back.”
Representative metaphor: “You set one foot forward and another back,” said of a person whose actual problem is indecision rather than physical movement.
A composite resemblance does not by itself establish metaphor. One must also determine whether the utterance names the two situations in a comparison or borrows one situation’s wording for the other.