Drive My Car

Year:  2021

Director:  Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Screenplay:  Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, based on the short story "Drive My Car" by Haruki Murakami

Starring:  Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tōko Miura, Reika Kirishima, Park Yu-rim, Jin Dae-yeon, Sonia Yuan, Ahn Hwitae, Perry Dizon, Satoko Abe, Masaki Okada

Running Time:  179 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Actor and theatre director Yūsuke Kafuku (Nishijima) is married to television scriptwriter Oto (Kirishima), who conceives her stories during sex and tells them to Yūsuke in bed, and he repeats them to her the next morning, by which time she has forgotten them.  Returning earphone day, he witnesses Oto cheating on him, however he leaves before either of them are aware of him, and never brings it up with her.  Shortly afterwards Oto dies of a sudden cerebral haemorrhage.  Two years later, a still grieving Yūsuke is hired to direct a production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya for a theatre festival in Hiroshima.  When he arrives, Yūsuke discovers that he is not allowed to drive and is forced to turn over the keys of his beloved old Saab to a taciturn young woman, Misaki Watari (Miura), who will act as his chauffeur for the duration.  During the casting session for the play Yūsuke is shocked to see that one of the cast is a disgraced former TV star, Kōji Takatsuki (Okada), who Yūsuke suspects was once Oto's lover.

Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami from his 2017 collection Men Without Women, and incorporating elements from a couple of other stories from that collection,  Drive My Car won, among many other awards, Best International Feature at the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Academy Awards, and was nominated for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture at the Academy Awards.  It also won Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival.  A three hour long film about coming to terms with grief may not seem like an attractive proposition, but it is more than that, and it is a mesmerising film.  It's full of small details, which can almost pass you by when they first come up, and then pay off later.  It's beautiful, heartbreaking and sometimes joyful.  The film's imposing length is as long as it needs to be to tell the story.  We spend a lot of time with Yūsuke and Oto, whose untimely death occurs about 40 minutes into the film, so we have had a chance to get to know them as a couple, and Yūsuke's loss has some real weight.  Hidetoshi Nishijima gives an incredible performance as Yūsuke, who is on screen for much of the film, and shows a real sense of grief and loss beneath his stoical facade.  Tōko Miura is impressive as the quiet driver, Misaki, who has her own troubled past, and their shared sense of grief, loss and guilt connects her and Yūsuke.  The way the film is structured is around the rehearsals for a theatre production of Uncle Vanya, and the development of the production in way mirrors the development of the characters in the film.  Yūsuke has a very strong relationship with the play, he was acting in a performance of the play at the time Oto died, and while in the car, he constantly listens to a tape recording of the play that Oto made for him to help his rehearsals.  The visual style of the film has a quiet beauty.  The film is laced with ambiguity, particularly the closing moments.  I was almost sorry when the closing credits rolled, because I wanted to see more of this story, and these characters.

     Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tōko Miura in Drive My Car