Drive My Car

A renowned stage actor and his aloof driver connect over highways and byways in Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Academy Award-winning exploration of grief.

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 theatre festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a shy 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 (Masaki Okada), 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.

Curator's Note

At just under three hours, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's Academy Award-winning film is an extended experience but one that's thoroughly rewarding for audiences. Based on a short story of the same name from Haruki Murakami's 2014 short story collection Men Without Women, the screen adaption by the director and co-writer Takamasa Oe speaks to the richness of Murakami's literary work, which is often adapted and expanded to much longer-form media

– Reece Goodwin; Curator (Film & TV)