Friday Night Flicks: Drive My Car
Watching this movie started like any night. Movie comes on, it’s in Japanese, subtitles roll, I don’t know a ton about it, but I was instantly hooked in and this film still lives with me a year or so on. It is a dark and emotional ride done with insane aesthetic from director Ryusuke Hamaguchi. A beautiful, haunting film.
Criterion Collection gives a succinct synopsis of the 3 hour movie that goes way too fast. Watch the trailer below and then click the link for options on how to watch via the film’s website.
Two years after his wife’s unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. As the production’s premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koji Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke’s late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins - with the help of his driver – to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind. Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a haunting road movie traveling a path of love, loss, acceptance, and peace. Winner of three prizes at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, including Best Screenplay.
