MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Just two years ago, Parasite took the world by storm. The quirky black comedy/thriller from South Korean director Bong Joon-ho was a sleeper hit that was the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars. Parasite seems to have opened the floodgates for Asian cinema. Minari was also a hit last year for South Korea while the 2022 awards season has a contender from Japan in director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car.
Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a theater actor and director married to screenwriter Oto (Reika Kirishima). Oto receives inspiration for her stories while having sex and she narrates these musings to Yusuke. After watching him perform Waiting for Godot, Oto introduces Yusuke to young actor Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada).
One day after heading home early, Yusuke finds Oto having sex with a young man, but he leaves without confronting them. Oto tells Yusuke they have something to discuss later that evening. Yusuke delays heading home that night and when he does, he finds Oto dead of a sudden brain hemorrhage.
Two years pass and Yusuke has been hired to direct an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s play Uncle Vanya. Yusuke has played the title character countless times and has rehearsed his lines opposite a recording of Oto reading opposite him. What makes this production unique is that the actors speak their dialogue in their native language. Thus Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Filipino, and even Korean Sign Language are employed by the theater troupe.
Upon being hired, the theater company requires that Yusuke be driven by female chauffeur Misaki Watari (Toko Miura). Yusuke initially refuses because he enjoys driving to work in his Saab 900 and reciting the Uncle Vanya dialogue but relents upon seeing Misaki’s skill. One of the members of the production company, Gong Yoon-soo (Jin Dae-yeon) translates Korean Sign Language for auditioning actress Lee Yoo-na (Park Yu-rim).
Meanwhile, Yusuke casts Koji in the lead role of Uncle Vanya though the latter seems too young for the part. Koji auditioned only after his career has gone downhill for some erratic behavior. Gong Yoon-soo and Lee Yoo-na only reveal to Yusuke after being cast that they are actually married. After completing the cast, Yusuke puts them through his method of performance that leaves some of the actors unhappy.
Although Yusuke is initially uneasy with Misaki driving for him and her staying by the car while he conducts rehearsals, they begin to learn more about each other. As Yusuke opens up about what happened with Oto, he also learns Misaki’s own sad tale that led her to Hiroshima.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Drive My Car is a long movie. With a running time of 159 minutes, you have to be in the right frame of mind when sitting down to watch it. Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami from his 2014 short story collection Men Without Women, the film was supposed to be set in Busan, South Korea. The pandemic forced Hamaguchi and the crew to shoot in Hiroshima instead.
Many of the characters in this film deal with loneliness in one form or another. Yusuke was in a marriage where he seemed to be used by Oto for sex so she could have ideas for her stories. They grew distant after the earlier loss of their daughter. Even after seeing her cheat on him, he doesn’t confront her and even seems to be avoiding having a serious conversation with her before her tragic end.
The revelation of how Misaki lost her abusive mother to a landslide was heartbreaking. But her saying that she could have saved her mother and chose not to bonds her to Yusuke. His admission that if he had gone straight home to Oto instead of avoiding her that day could have resulted in her being alive rather than dying from the brain hemorrhage.
After their individual loneliness, they end up connecting with each other, and perhaps with the rest of society. Yusuke being forced to act as Uncle Vanya despite repeatedly saying he would just direct is like returning to something he both loves and is really good at. It’s an acknowledgment that it is time to let go of his tragic past and he is allowed to be happy once again.
Amid these two sad stories and Koji’s own callous treatment of play co-star Janice Chang (Sonia Yuan), there’s enough misery to go around. These are a stark contrast to the loving relationship between Gong Yoon-soo and Lee Yoo-na. These two survived a tragedy between them while also navigating a considerable disability/language barrier on top of moving from Korea to Japan. They seem to be the most well-adjusted and least stressed characters in the film.
Drive My Car will not be mistaken for a Marvel flick, any action franchise, or a motion picture starring globally-known actors. Instead, here is a very quiet movie with no explosions or over the top performances. We have powerful stories about real-life tragedies and problems that people deal with in the real world.
Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe have already won Best Screenplay at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival while the film won Best Foreign Language film at the Golden Globes. Hamaguchi is nominated for Best Director at the 94th Academy Awards, one of four nominations for Drive My Car. The others are for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best International Feature, and Best Picture. It’s a significant achievement as Drive My Car becomes the first Japanese film nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
