Tedium crowds into ‘Hotel Room’ vignettes

“Hotel Room” is essentially a filmed play, shot in a comfortable suite in an old hotel somewhere in New York, its grainy, high-contrast black and white cinematography recalling vintage Manhattan independent features.

While writers-directors Cesc Gay and Daniel Gilmelberg begin on a mildly entertaining note, with each successive vignette the film grows increasingly tedious. The curtain-raiser consists of a honeymooning couple whose spat leads to the groom inadvertently killing the bride, whose corpse he hides in a closet before escaping.

The next guest is Fernando (Xavier Domingo), a carefree magician in his 60s who sends for a call girl, Iris (Heidi Wolfe), whose impersonal manner gives way to affability as she and Fernando strike up a pleasant rapport and discover what may be--or not -- a surprising connection in their lives.

Domingo and Wolfe are skillful and relaxed, and this vignette is lively and effective, but unfortunately the film goes downhill from here. The next occupant is a young photographer (David Jacob Ryder) who turns his camera out a window to focus on a young woman who sits interminably on a sidewalk bench, and the last has to do with an eccentric guy who insists he was born in the hotel suite. “Hotel Room” fades out long before it’s over.

*

‘Hotel Room’

MPAA rating: Unrated.

Times guidelines: Some violence, sexuality, language

Xavier Domingo...Fernando, a magician

Heidi Wolfe...Iris, a prostitute

David Jacob Ryder...The photographer

Paris Kiely...Hotel employee

A Hollywood Independents release of Bailando con Todos production in association with The Film Machine. Directors Cesc Gay, Daniel Gimelberg. Producers Ferran Viladevall, Marta Figueras. Screenplay Cesx Gay; based on stories by Gay and Gimelberg. Cinematographer Nick Hoffman. Editors Larry Walkin, Frank Gutierrez. Music Joan Diaz, Jordi Prate. Production designer Gimelberg. In English, with Spanish subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.

Exclusively at the Fairfax Cinemas, Beverly Boulevard at Fairfax Avenue, (323) 655-4010.