Drive My Car (2021)

Foreign Drama

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... Full synopsis »

Capsule Review: Among the film critic community, Drive My Car continues to garner unabashed praise. The latest from director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, the drama is a three-hour, emotionally restrained journey that thankfully is not just about someone driving around in a car, but could be observed as not a whole lot more if you care not to look. Hamaguchi has made a respected career of telling powerful stories stripped of melodrama, but it’s an approach that, in this case, hovers on the edge of dry. I greatly appreciated his 2018 film Asako I & II, but otherwise his storytelling approach and the the themes that summer just below the surface don’t do a lot for me. Full movie review »

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