Drive My Car (2021)

Kudos to this movie for snagging nominations outside of Best International Feature. In addition to being our eighth Best Picture nominee, director/co-writer Ryûsake Hamaguchi scored nods for both Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. This sad, gentle drama is very long, but it rewards the patient viewer with a moving story about loss, communication, and connection.

Two years after the sudden death of his wife, Yûsuke Kafuku travels to Hiroshima to direct an innovative multilingual production of Uncle Vanya. As the production stirs up elements of his past, he works to bring his disparate cast together while not getting caught in the undertow of his own sad memories. He’s upset to find that the theatre company has hired a driver for him throughout the span of the production, robbing him of his alone time to process and consider the script in his car, but he begins to form a connection with his quiet, stolid driver Misaki.

This is a movie that takes its time and makes no bones about that, and the drama is soft-spoken enough that I understand it won’t be for everyone. But it’s beautiful. Based on a short story, the film softly teases out personal connections between these lonely, self-sufficient people who are carrying their hurts around in silence. I like how long it takes Mr. Kafuku and Misaki to start opening up to each other, how the first phase of their relationship starts with the companionable quiet of the daily car ride to rehearsal as they both listen to the recording of Mr. Kafuku’s late wife reading the script of Uncle Vanya. Neither of these two are likely to share their private pain with just anyone, and so we take the time for them to settle in, to gradually become comfortable with each other, to talk about Mr. Kafuku’s car and driving before they’re ready to delve into something deeper.

Given that this is a movie about a theatre director, the ways that the film feels like a play stand out. There are numerous monologues of one character bearing their soul to another, long, quiet takes where one character speaks without interruption, often not even making eye contact with the person listening. It also has seemingly-tangential stories that are imbued with further meaning over time and important points of symbolism that recur. These are frequent trappings of plays, but the film still feels like a movie and uses its visual language effectively.

I love Mr. Kafuku’s production. His whole thing is mounting multilingual productions with international casts: in his hands, Uncle Vanya is performed in Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and Korean Sign Language, with each actor delivering lines in their native language to scene partners who may not understand what they’re saying. Besides serving as a really neat platform for exploring ideas of connection and communication, conveying meaning amid uncomprehended words, it’s cool to see the techniques Mr. Kafuku uses to achieve his method. It can, understandably, be very difficult for his cast, but the results are arresting.

A quick note: I’ve looked around, but I can’t find any confirmation whether Park Yu-rim, who plays mute dancer-turned-actress Yoon-A, is a native signer. While I don’t know Korean Sign Language, my gut feeling watching her sign says probably not. If that’s true, this is another instance of an ablebodied actor playing a character with a disability.

Hidetoshi Nishijima gives a beautiful, understated performance as Mr. Kafuku. He’s by turns silently submissive as he processes massive things with little fanfare and quietly assertive as he holds space for himself in the face of stronger personalities. If anything, Tôko Miura is even more understated as Misaki, but her stillness draws you in. On the face of things, she’s just quietly getting on with her work, her goal being to perform her job so seamlessly you scarcely notice she’s there, but there’s always something deeper stirring beneath the surface.

Warnings

Language, sexual content, drinking/smoking, references to violence, and thematic elements.