Ryusuke Hamaguchi
2021
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 Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke’s late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins - with the help of his driver – to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind. Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR is a haunting road movie traveling a path of love, loss, acceptance, and peace.
CREDITS
95 Awards, 108 Nominations
Winner Best International Feature Film Oscar Academy Awards (2022)
Nominee Best Motion Picture of the Year Oscar Academy Awards (2022)
Nominee Best Achievement in Directing Oscar Academy Awards (2022)
Nominee Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar Academy Award (2022)
Winner Golden Globes Best Motion Picture - Non-English Language (2022)
Winner Independent Spirit Award Best International Film (2022)
Winner Critics Choice Award Best Foreign Language Film (2022)
Winner Best Screenplay Cannes Film Festival (2021)
Winner FIPRESCI Competition Cannes Film Festival (2021)
Winner Prize of the Ecumenical Jury Cannes Film Festival (2021)
Nominee Pale d’Or Cannes Film Festival (2021)
Winner Gotham Independent Film Award Best International Feature (2021)
❛ Epic Japanese drama Drive My Car is the best cinematic ride of the year ❜
— Globe and Mail
❛ Sit back and enjoy the ride ❜
— National Post
❛ All the ingredients that made Hamaguchi’s 2015 breakthrough Happy Hour such a beautifully affirming experience are here, but sharpened ever so delicately into a story that parallels personal growth with the acting process. ❜
— NOW
❛ Tender, Tough Road Trip Via a Harucki Murakami Tale ❜
— Original CIN
❛ Drive My Car is a beautiful piece of work with incredible restraint, holding the tension throughout the film. While three hours might seem a tad too long, there's incredible depth and emotion interspersed with symbolic visuals, resulting in a film that provides comfort just as much as it reminds audiences of the casualties and collisions in one's own life ❜
— Exclaim