‘The Hotel of My Dream’: A literary comedy that by no means actually gels

Movies about authors inevitably run into the issue that the act of writing is a bore to observe. Even within the best-case state of affairs, all you’re prone to see is phrases showing on a web page. More typically, you’ll be caught observing somebody spend hours agonizing over a single paragraph or procrastinating whereas they look ahead to inspiration to strike.

The titular institution in Yukihiko Tsutsumi’s “The Hotel of My Dream” is the go-to place for such habits. First opened in 1954, the Hilltop Hotel in Tokyo was a landmark for postwar wordsmiths, frequented by the likes of Yukio Mishima and Yasunari Kawabata. Editors reportedly used to mill round within the foyer whereas they waited for writers within the rooms upstairs to complete their manuscripts.

That’s the vibe Kayoko Nakashima (the single-named Non) is searching for when she checks in for an evening in 1984, bringing a fountain pen, a wad of paper and a few unfulfilled literary ambitions. Her fledgling profession has stalled since she gained a prize for brand spanking new writers a number of years earlier — one thing she blames on a scathing evaluation by bestselling novelist Munenori Higashijujo (Kenichi Takito).