Drive My Car Reviews: The wheels of the movie's central automobile morph into the spinning reels of a cassette tape in a recorder during a brief transition early in the three-hour “Drive My Car” by Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi.
They fuse for a split second, almost as if the voice captured on that gadget served as the vehicle's fuel.
In a sense, it does, because the music follows the motorist like a phantom mile after mile.
This is the second Hamaguchi-directed film (the other being “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy”) to be released this year, and it takes its premise from one of Haruki Murakami's short tales in the book Men Without Women.
“Drive My Car,” which was chosen as Japan's entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar for the first time, celebrates the filmmaker's well-deserved breakthrough.
Drive My Car Where to Watch?
How to watch ‘Drive My Car' – HBO Max has made the Oscar-nominated drama available to stream.
- “Drive My Car,” the award-winning Japanese drama, is now available to stream on HBO Max.
- The film premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, and it's up for the best picture at the 2022 Oscars.
Yûsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and his wife, scriptwriter Oto (Reika Kirishima), verbally construct a tale for her next television project while basking in post-coital tranquility.
They tell of a teen girl who is so enamored with a classmate that she infiltrates his home to collect irreplaceable mementos.
Under the auspicious narrative supervision of Hamaguchi and co-screenwriter Takamasa Oe, their spontaneous fiction settles in as one of the storytelling layers that finally overlay with self-referential elegance.
Yûsuke comes to Hiroshima, a city with its history of calamity, two years after a personal tragedy loaded with unresolved hatred, to put on a new stage version of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, performed by actors speaking their respective native tongues.
He must agree to have a chauffeur as part of the job, which he does not want to do.
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Getting behind the wheel of his out-of-date two-door vehicle is a rite of passage for him.
Drive My Car Trailer
Watch Drive My Car Here
The artist's car is a temple of freedom and isolation, burning bright red through the streets and highways; the embodiment of the return and the departure; the road back home to his beloved and the escape from the fallout of their present.
Oto's voice comes through the speakers through the aforementioned tape offering him lines, a lifeline, in the silence of that moving area.
What she says may be from a classic text or straight from her, but the distinction is irrelevant. In a continuous state, both become the same.
“Drive My Car” contemplates Yûsuke's inner plight with softhearted tact, never pushing too hard but letting the pain unfold in its own time, first from the removed safety of an unnoticed reflection on a mirror, then from the up-close intensity of two people listening to one another as if the world around them had faded into irrelevance.
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When Yûsuke finally experiences Hamaguchi's divine relief of catharsis, the extended emotional restraint makes for a stunning, mutual release.
Drive My Car Cast
- Reika Kirishima
- Tôko Miura
- Hidetoshi Nishijima
- Masaki Okada
- Sonia Yuan
- Satoko Abe
Nishijima's performance astounds for its understatement, a phrase that also applies to the picture as a whole.
He maintains strenuous composure until he can no longer swallow his anger toward the person he loved most. As a grief-stricken husband and father, he masks his continued distress with professional diligence; he maintains strenuous composure until he can no longer swallow his anger towards the person he loved most.
The actor's stoic motions serve as an impenetrable barrier, refusing to reveal any traces of his actual personality.
Misaki (Tôko Miura), his designated personal driver, shares his desire to stay undetected and unquestioned. Misaki (Tôko Miura) is a young lady hiding from her guilt buried in the wreckage of a previous life more than a safe distance away.
While watching Yûsuke's daily rehearsals with his group, which includes beleaguered star Kôji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), a gradual bond with Misaki develops.
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Miura's understated assertiveness heightens a sense of mutual confidentiality, and subsequently, a sense of shame that numbs them both.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Makes Drive My Car So Special?
Drive My Car is a unique film. It's a film about language, but the most profound moments of communication occur in its silences.
It's a three-hour drama about mourning, yet viewing it is a carefree and oddly soothing experience.
Is It Tedious to Drive My Car?
After all of the accolades and nominations that this film has received, I had high hopes for Drive My Car.
It was such a letdown! This film is pretentious and dull, with gratuitous explicit sex scenes and irritating characters.
What Does the Ending of Drive My Car Mean?
This represents Misaki and Yasuke finally facing their pasts and moving on – Misaki has left Japan to start a new life, while Yasuke has let go of the car that reminded him so much of Oto and had kept him from going on.
