2021 · NR · Film
Three hours, and every one of them earns the next.
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s film is adapted from a Haruki Murakami short story but it expands far beyond it, becoming a film about grief and language and the strange distance between what we say and what we mean. Yûsuke Kafuku is a theater director staging Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima; his driver for the residency period is a young woman named Misaki, and the film is largely built around their conversations during the daily commute. That description makes it sound quiet. It is quiet. But the quietness accumulates, and by the third hour it has the weight of everything that has not been said in two films’ worth of running time. It won the Oscar for Best International Film. It deserved it.
Plan for it — three hours is not a casual watch, and Drive My Car is not a casual film. It rewards attention and will not rush on your behalf. The first hour establishes; the second reorganizes; the third pays everything off. The final scenes are among the most emotionally complete in recent cinema. Watch it on a long weekend evening when you have no particular reason to be anywhere after. Give it the room it needs.
VERDICT · The rare three-hour film that makes you wish it were longer.
POUR · A sake, warmed. Or green tea if the evening calls for something clear.
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Some films belong on the shelf. Find it on Blu-ray.
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