DRIVE MY CAR
****
Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Screenwriters: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, based on the eponymous short story from the Haruki Murakami’s 2014 collection Men Without Women.
Principal cast:
Hidetoshi Nishijima
Reika Kirishima
Tôko Miura
Masaki Okada
Park Yurim
Jin Daeyeon
Country: Japan
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 179 mins.
Australian release date: 10 February 2022.
Having picked up three awards at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car has now crossed the Atlantic and been nominated for four more in the upcoming Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s a film that has achieved critical acclaim wherever it has been shown, which is surprising when you consider that it is almost three hours long, is subtitled, deals with heavy themes about grief, jealousy and finding oneself, and moves at a measured pace, with much of it shot in a moving car. On the other hand, once you see it you realise that this acclaim is not surprising at all, such is its mastery of the language of cinema and its moving yet cerebral screenplay involving a play within the film and juxtaposing both within its frame.
In an unusually lengthy pre-credit sequence, the director focuses on the intimate lives of a happily married show-biz couple in Tokyo. Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a successful theatre director and actor and his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) is an equally notable television screenwriter. After sex, Oto tells Yūsuke snippets of a story she is constructing and he dutifully remembers the details for her because, later, she claims she can’t remember them clearly. This is a habit they’ve developed over some years and it is the reason for some of her successes as a writer. Returning home later than usual one night, Yūsuke finds Oto collapsed on the floor and his life is inexorably changed. Cue opening titles!
Two years later, Yūsuke accepts a commission in Hiroshima to direct a multi-lingual version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. He drives there in his much-loved, fire-engine red Saab 900 but when he arrives the producers inform him that they have hired a young woman, Misaki Watari (Tôko Miura), to chauffeur him while he’s in Hiroshima and they won’t take no for an answer. He accepts their demand once he realises that she is an excellent driver and he entrusts his beloved Saab to her care. When casting the role of Uncle Vanya, Yūsuke selects a young actor, Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), who Oto had introduced him to a couple of years earlier, even though he’s of the opinion that he is “not an especially skilled actor.” For reasons of his own, he wants to test Koji but he begins to question his intentions on the one-hour commute to and from the theatre every day, as he and the aloof Misaki begin to open up to each other about their pasts.
Drive My Car is a slow-burn work that keeps viewers on their toes. It actually covers some incredibly dark material - there’s under-age sex, infidelity, violence and murder, for a start - but none of these things are seen. We only hear about them in fleeting conversations; most of the drama is centred on the rehearsals of Uncle Vanya and the way in which the play parallels events in the lives of Yūsuke and Misaki. The screenplay is extraordinarily impressive in the way it builds and builds to its, some would say enigmatic, conclusion. Even the short story’s author, Haruki Murakami, was apparently surprised and pleased with the screenwriters’ treatment of his story, telling The New York Times that he “was drawn in from beginning to end.” Hamaguchi’s film has a lot to say about acting, too, and not just on the stage. It examines how we all play roles in life, even if sometimes we don’t realise it, and looks at the pain involved when we set out to find the truth about ourselves. These are lofty issues and the director admits that he’s not entirely sure whether or not he’s pulled it off. Judging by Drive My Car’s global reception and this reviewer’s opinion, I’d suggest he needn’t worry - I predict there’s an Oscar heading his way in March.
Screenwriters: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, based on the eponymous short story from the Haruki Murakami’s 2014 collection Men Without Women.
Principal cast:
Hidetoshi Nishijima
Reika Kirishima
Tôko Miura
Masaki Okada
Park Yurim
Jin Daeyeon
Country: Japan
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 179 mins.
Australian release date: 10 February 2022.
Having picked up three awards at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car has now crossed the Atlantic and been nominated for four more in the upcoming Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s a film that has achieved critical acclaim wherever it has been shown, which is surprising when you consider that it is almost three hours long, is subtitled, deals with heavy themes about grief, jealousy and finding oneself, and moves at a measured pace, with much of it shot in a moving car. On the other hand, once you see it you realise that this acclaim is not surprising at all, such is its mastery of the language of cinema and its moving yet cerebral screenplay involving a play within the film and juxtaposing both within its frame.
In an unusually lengthy pre-credit sequence, the director focuses on the intimate lives of a happily married show-biz couple in Tokyo. Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a successful theatre director and actor and his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) is an equally notable television screenwriter. After sex, Oto tells Yūsuke snippets of a story she is constructing and he dutifully remembers the details for her because, later, she claims she can’t remember them clearly. This is a habit they’ve developed over some years and it is the reason for some of her successes as a writer. Returning home later than usual one night, Yūsuke finds Oto collapsed on the floor and his life is inexorably changed. Cue opening titles!
Two years later, Yūsuke accepts a commission in Hiroshima to direct a multi-lingual version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. He drives there in his much-loved, fire-engine red Saab 900 but when he arrives the producers inform him that they have hired a young woman, Misaki Watari (Tôko Miura), to chauffeur him while he’s in Hiroshima and they won’t take no for an answer. He accepts their demand once he realises that she is an excellent driver and he entrusts his beloved Saab to her care. When casting the role of Uncle Vanya, Yūsuke selects a young actor, Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), who Oto had introduced him to a couple of years earlier, even though he’s of the opinion that he is “not an especially skilled actor.” For reasons of his own, he wants to test Koji but he begins to question his intentions on the one-hour commute to and from the theatre every day, as he and the aloof Misaki begin to open up to each other about their pasts.
Drive My Car is a slow-burn work that keeps viewers on their toes. It actually covers some incredibly dark material - there’s under-age sex, infidelity, violence and murder, for a start - but none of these things are seen. We only hear about them in fleeting conversations; most of the drama is centred on the rehearsals of Uncle Vanya and the way in which the play parallels events in the lives of Yūsuke and Misaki. The screenplay is extraordinarily impressive in the way it builds and builds to its, some would say enigmatic, conclusion. Even the short story’s author, Haruki Murakami, was apparently surprised and pleased with the screenwriters’ treatment of his story, telling The New York Times that he “was drawn in from beginning to end.” Hamaguchi’s film has a lot to say about acting, too, and not just on the stage. It examines how we all play roles in life, even if sometimes we don’t realise it, and looks at the pain involved when we set out to find the truth about ourselves. These are lofty issues and the director admits that he’s not entirely sure whether or not he’s pulled it off. Judging by Drive My Car’s global reception and this reviewer’s opinion, I’d suggest he needn’t worry - I predict there’s an Oscar heading his way in March.