TMS Movie Review: Drive My Car
(Bitters End / Janus Films)
There’s something to be said about ‘middle of the road’ movies which are neither brilliant and ground-breaking, nor terrible and forgettable. Based on the high, positive reception Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car has been receiving this awards season, I was not expecting to feel so whelmed by the end of the whole three hour runtime. After highly experiencing the previous Asian produced film to sweep the Oscars, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (2019), maybe I had too many expectations. Or maybe I did myself a favor accidentally coming across some social media posts calling Drive My Car ‘boring’ or ‘slow’ to save myself even more disappointment.
In modern day Japan, successful, middle-aged theatre actor and director, Yūsuke Kafuku’s (Hidetoshi Nishijima) life is turned sideways when his writer wife, Oto (Reika Kirishma) suddenly dies of a brain hemorrhage not long after Yusuke secretly discovers she’s having an affair with younger actor Kōji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada). While still recovering from Oto’s premature death, Yūsuke soon has to also deal with working opposite Kōji in the same revival of Chekhov’s ‘Uncle Vanya.’ During all this, the theater company producing the play insists Yūsuke be accompanied by a driver, Misaki (Tōko Miura), they’ve hired while he’s directing out of town.
(Bitters End / Janus Films)
For me, the big cardinal sin of filmmaking is unremarkable direction, which unfortunately, I think is the case with Hamaguchi’s for Drive My Car. There’s nothing technically wrong with anything in the story progression and character development, but nothing unique stands out cinematically either. It feels like anyone could have made this movie. All of the performances are fine and stay only fine throughout the lengthy story. The three-hour runtime does feel a bit unwarranted and makes you wonder what a condensed 90-100 minute cut would be like. I did think Miura had an interesting screen presence as the tomboy Misaki whom reminded me a little of Winona Ryder in Jim Jarmusch’s Night on Earth (1991). Beyond that, I’m a little puzzled how Drive My Car turned out to be the international film to get all the accolades this season.
Like I previously stated, it’s a decent picture, but I’m not sure I would choose it as Best Foreign Language Film of 2021 over Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers or Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World. But if you want to see a new Japanese movie in native tongue, Drive My Car might be for you.