Yūsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is an acclaimed theatre actor who is married to Oto (Reika Kirishima), an accomplished screenwriter.  Their relationship is fraught with tragedy having lost a young daughter to pneumonia, and to escape the troubles of his home life, Yūsuke often goes for drives to clear his mind – a hobby that is jeopardized with the diagnosis of developing glaucoma in his left eye.  Yūsuke is offered a two-month residency contract with a theatre company in Hiroshima, though the one stipulation is that he uses the company’s driver, Misaki (Tōko Miura), a younger woman who, much like Yūsuke, copes with her own trauma through the therapy of driving. 

Drive My Car is directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, co-written with Takamasa Oe, and based off of selected short stories by Haruki Murakami from his 2014 collection Men Without Women.  The film received wide acclaim at the 2021 edition of Cannes and was Japan’s submission to AMPAS for Best International Feature.  Released by Janus Films in the USA, the 179-minute feature is a slow-boiling meditation on love, loss, and how we cope with such strong and sometimes crippling emotions. 

The film has an impressive forty-one-minute cold opening before the credits roll that acts as its own short film and allows us to peer into the turbulent, yet creatively catalytic relationship shared between Yūsuke and Oto.  In this extended first act, the groundwork is extensively and meticulously laid out through a strange, tumbling narrative.  We are given bits and pieces about a new story that Oto is working on, one where a young woman sneaks into the bedroom of the man she admires.  At each break-in, she takes a small, unnoticeable token of his and in exchange leaves something of hers behind as well.  It is a profoundly interesting opening intercut with scenes of Yūsuke at work on stage in Waiting for Godot and later Uncle Vanya – a play that will heavily influence the latter two hours of the film. 

The turning point of both the first act and, unbeknownst to us at the time, the central question of the film comes in the form of infidelity unknowingly witnessed.  The question won’t truly be asked until much later in the film, but Hamaguchi plants the seeds early so that when the idea of how much forgiveness does unconditional love allow in a relationship and how much blame do we take responsibility for over the unintended consequences of our actions towards the ones we love comes into play, everything that leads up to those revelations all of a sudden makes sense as the larger picture comes into focus.  It is not a fast-paced narrative, and while the camera is far more volatile when compared to the likes of Andrei Tarkovsky or Béla Tarr, the emotional weight of Drive My Car is on par with those slow-cinema masters. 

When Yūsuke arrives at Hiroshima, the film undergoes a tonal shift as he pours himself into his work.  We are introduced to a wide variety of characters that make up the cast of his Vanya revival such as Takatsuki (Masaki Okada) an actor recovering from scandal who is awarded the title role in the Chekov reproduction starring opposite Lee Yoo-na (Park Yoo-Rim) a mute actress who communicates via Korean sign language.  The second act unfolds during the many rehearsal sessions where the actors grow increasingly frustrated that they are stuck doing another table read instead of beginning to block and work through the script.  The frustration of being stuck can be felt in the audience if one is not in tune with Hamaguchi’s intentions and can make the minutes drag on well past their length, but for those that seek to understand the questions at the core of the film, their patience will be rewarded. 

The catharsis comes late in the film during the closing scene of Uncle Vanya, but not before the conclusion of the parallel plotline involving Yūsuke and Misaki, the driver.  An air of mystery surrounds her: we know that she smokes, we know that she drives well, and through that, we learn that she does not have much of a home life given her dedication to the job.  As the two spend more and more time together over the course of the rehearsals, they begin to reveal parts of themselves, and eventually, Misaki confesses her past to Yūsuke in a very emotional and tender moment of vulnerability and acceptance. 

Where Drive My Car stumbles is in its conclusion.  The main plot revolving around the production of Uncle Vanya concludes, fittingly, with a sold-out show.  Hamaguchi grants us the best seat in the house to witness the final scene of the play, but in doing so relies almost entirely on Chekov’s words to wrap up his film.  The Russian play is a central part of the film’s DNA so its inclusion in the narrative makes perfect sense on a structural level, but after almost three hours with these troubled characters, it feels like a cheap resolution and not one that is entirely organic.  Will the lessons learned onstage be carried with the actors when the makeup and the costumes are removed?  We are left to assume so, but it is left a mystery to us, at least so far as Yūsuke is concerned. 

Hamaguchi’s latest is an intense film that brings up many important and uncomfortable questions and realizations about relationships.  To love is to be vulnerable, but we trust those that we love to protect us as we protect them.  Drive My Car examines what happens when that trust fails.  How much are we willing to overlook and to forgive in the name of love that is unequally returned?  It is a painful question without an easy answer, and the choices we make all carry a great weight on our own lives.  Is the pursuit of protecting the ones we love even when they do wrong to us truly satisfying?  Is it still love?  Drive My Car is a film about regret in the present – without the benefit of hindsight, how much can one person give up in pursuit of unequal love.  Will they ever truly be happy?  Will they ever truly be at peace?  A decision will eventually need to be made as ignoring these questions is not an answer and one cannot simply drive away from them forever.