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Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a hauntingly beautiful drama that takes audiences on an unforgettable journey of love, loss and acceptance.
Soft-spoken and bittersweet, Drive My Car is a poignant drama unlike any other. Directed and co-written by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the 2021 film is the story of one man’s immense loss and the road he must travel as the one left behind. Hamaguchi’s film is transcendent; the direction strips away the screen, inviting the viewer to share — and almost participate — in the onscreen events. The hauntingly beautiful Japanese drama takes audiences on an unforgettable journey alongside protagonist Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), sharing in his experiences of love, loss and acceptance.
Drive My Car is an engaging film that tells an unconventional tale of kinship and self-discovery. The screenplay is based on Haruki Murakami’s short story of the same name, from his collection Men Without Women. The protagonist is actor and theater director Yūsuke Kafuku — likely a reference to Franz Kafka (Murakami also wrote the novel Kafka On The Shore, which is a more overt nod to the influential writer). Yūsuke is a tortured artist. He channels his pain into his art, producing and starring in tragic plays like Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot and Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Yet, he drifts through life utterly reticent, stoic to the point of being disconnected from the world around him.
Initially, Drive My Car hits the beats typical of a marriage-based drama. Yūsuke loves his wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima), but the two are emotionally distant. They lost their young daughter some years ago, which may have caused the initial rift in their relationship. However, their problems are made worse by Yūsuke’s lack of engagement. In a memorable scene, he walks in on Oto with a young actor in his bed. Rather than cause an emotional outburst, Yūsuke simply leaves quietly, continuing on as though nothing happened. Just as the plot seems poised to force some sort of dramatic showdown between the husband and wife, Oto abruptly dies — and the movie truly begins. Drive My Car is not a dramatic depiction of a marriage crumbling; it’s a solemn reflection on grief and identity.
Despite the three-hour runtime, Drive My Car never feels excessive, bloated or dragging. Much like a long, comfortable evening drive, the film lulls the audience into a serene state in which time feels non-existent. The movie’s end is an almost abrupt conclusion to the dreamy, pathos-heavy journey. Two years after Oto’s death, Yūsuke finds a kindred spirit in Misaki Watari (Tōko Miura), the young woman hired to drive him during his residency in Hiroshima. The two share many scenes in his red Saab 900, the two peacefully traveling down long, winding roads. Like Yūsuke, Misaki suffered a great loss, and has shut herself off from others; however, the tranquil drives they share — scored by tapes of Oto reciting Uncle Vanya — become a safe space for vulnerability and empathy.
Drive My Car presents the unlikely duo as reluctant peers thrown together by fate. Yūsuke and Misaki are uniquely suited to appeal to the other’s sense of unacknowledged longing: Yūsuke filling the role of father, and Misaki, daughter. And yet, it’s never as clean as that, much like real life. Neither can undo the hurt caused by the original loss. Hamaguchi avoids being trite or contrived, allowing the relationship to develop into a hard-to-define asexual intimacy — a stark contrast to the detached sexuality between Oto and the men she slept with. Both Yūsuke and Misaki have lost direction in their lives, not only because they are grieving but also because they are plagued by survivor’s guilt. It seems only fitting that such a story would be set in Hiroshima, with its deep connection to collective trauma.
There are many other rich characters and subplots to discover in Drive My Car as well; there’s the young, disgraced actor Kōji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), who struggles with self-control, and the mute actress Lee Yoon-a (Park Yoo-rim), who turned to the theater to cope with her inability to continue dancing professionally. Even Oto leaves an impression as a complex, and ultimately tragic, figure. Drive My Car is a rich narrative that offers an unforgettable experience for viewers, presented beautifully by Hamaguchi’s attentive hand.
Ultimately, what makes Drive My Car such an effective film is the cinematography and direction. The long, repetitive shots of Yūsuke’s bright-red Saab against seemingly endless — and completely vacant — roads impart a sense of a personal spiritual journey. Great care is taken to avoid distractions. While there are people in the backgrounds of shots, they’re often in shadows and slightly out of focus. Many of the scenes are vivid and dramatic, heightening the tension bubbling under the surface of the subdued action. Yūsuke, and many of the people he encounters in Drive My Car, are impossibly stoic by Western standards; but beneath the polite, quiet public faces are souls that mourn, cry, rage, crave and love. Hamaguchi reminds audiences that what goes unsaid can sometimes be the most powerful statement possible, but that being out of touch with one’s emotions is like living half-alive.
Drive My Car premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and will be available to stream on HBO Max on March 2, 2021. It is 179 minutes long and is unrated.
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