Drive My Car: A Review

 

DRIVE MY CAR

Some things are universal, and some things are specific to certain cultures. Drive My Car touches on both elements, covering grief while also keeping to its Japanese setting. While the film's length may be off-putting to some, once the film gets rolling Drive My Car becomes a strong portrait of letting go. 

Successful theater actor Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) has built a strong reputation for his multilingual dual skills of directing and acting on the stage. His wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) is a successful television screenwriter, giving him her newest risqué scenario for Japanese television. Kafuku is in high demand as an actor, director and theater judge. Leaving for a theater festival, he is delayed and forced to return, where he finds Oto having sex with Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada) an actor from a new television project. Kafuku quietly sneaks off, only to find that Oto asks that they have a talk when he returns. When he does return, he finds Oto dead of a brain hemorrhage. 

Two years later, Kafuku is still processing his mixed emotions, as he is now alone, he and Oto having lost their daughter many years ago. He has been invited to a theatrical residency in Hiroshima but is displeased when told that he will need a driver during the residency. Kafuku has been driving his beloved red Saab 900 Turbo for years even with his glaucoma (diagnosed after an accident). Moreover, he uses the drives to listen to tapes of Oto feeding him lines, which relaxes and helps him with his productions as well as keeping Oto alive. His new driver, Misaki Watari (Toko Miura) is a bit of a sullen girl, but efficient at her job. She is also 23 years old and would have been the same age as his and Oto's daughter had she lived. 

Kafuku will direct the theater's production of Uncle Vanya with a multilingual cast. To both their surprises, Kafuku casts Takatsuki in the title role, the actor having fallen on hard times due to personal scandal. As the rehearsals go on, the trio of Kafuku, Watari and Takatsuki deal with their own guilts and regrets about the past with varying degrees of success. Will another scandal that involves Takatsuki force Uncle Vanya to be cancelled? Will Kafuku have to pull double duty? Will he and Watari reconcile with themselves and heal? 

Drive My Car is a bit of an endurance test. The first forty minutes is about Kafuku and Oto, which technically is all pre-credit. I wonder if this could have been covered in less time. It does allow us a chance to be with the characters and build up the dynamic between Kafuku and Oto. However, it at times feels like too much, especially when you think that Drive My Car is more than just Kafuku's story. 

However, once one settles into things, he or she will find that Drive My Car does reward those willing to endure writer/director Ryusuke Hamagushi's adaptation of Haruki Murikami's short story. There is a scene where Kafuku and Takatsuki talk in soft tones about Oto: the former's awareness of her rampant infidelities as a coping mechanism while still loving him, the latter filling in the story which Kafuku did not know how it ended. All this while Watari is listening up front, rarely even expressing much except at one point where her eyebrows go up when she hears that Kafuku and Oto's daughter would be the same age as Watari had she lived.

This scene, not built on grand emotions but on quiet tones and glances, is a master class of acting, writing and directing. Hamaguchi gives us a great moment to close this scene when Kafuku offers Watari a cigarette where she can indulge in her one major vice, then Kafuku joins her. Hamaguchi allows the symbolism to speak for itself. 

He also at times finds clever ways to give us background. For example, we do not know why Takatsuki is now slumming it in a theater production until Kafuku and Watari take a ferry to Watari's hometown to give him time to consider whether or not to act and direct Uncle Vanya. We hear from a far-away television about Takatsuki's past record, which tells us while giving us that information in a logical way.

The performances are not just universally good but multilingual. We have scenes where Uncle Vanya and Waiting for Godot are performed in different languages ranging from German to Indonesian. Kafuku's newest production of Uncle Vanya is similarly multilingual: there are Chinese and Filipino actors, and even an actress who uses Korean Sign Language. It is eventually cleared up how this cacophony is clear to the audience (a large screen has several simultaneous translations). However, the staging of Uncle Vanya is so good that at times one almost forgets one is watching Drive My Car and focuses on Uncle Vanya.   

Nishijima and Miura form a great double-act as Kafuku and Watari. Individually they both excel, particularly Nishijima who carries the bulk of Drive My Car. He not only has to play Kafuku but also at times characters from Waiting for Godot and Uncle Vanya. His performance is never showy but actually quite quiet, which makes it all the more effective. The same goes for Watari, who has her own moments when she talks about her mother and the regret she carries with her own relationship. They grieve in different ways but find a way to process that grief to peace.

Again, I think length will be an issue. I think the nearly three-hour runtime, coupled with it being in Japanese, will scare some people off. I admit to struggling initially with the film, finding it interesting at times but dragging at others. Eventually though, particularly after a drive with Kafuku and Takatsuki, I became more involved. Drive My Car is well-written, directed and acted throughout. Straightforward and respectful, one will find Drive My Car well worth the trip.

DECISION: B+