He [Hamaguchi] floods the film with the kind of emotion and intimacy that always feels earned and real. Stunningly shot and acted, with one of the best scripts in years...
Drive My Car feels like a slow, soothing look at a man leaving his demons in the rear-view mirror, and we’re lucky enough to tag along for the journey.
David Lynch is known for heightening a mood with the cranked-up sound of “room tone”. Hamaguchi has perfected “car tone” — black night outside, faces reflected in the glass. An old red Saab thus becomes a sanctuary, carrying souls in transit.
Based on a Haruki Murakami short story of the same name, Drive My Car is a profound movie preoccupied with the things that can be communicated among people who do not share a common tongue.
It may not be a COVID-19 film, but it’s the perfect story for the pandemic era, ruminating on isolation and loss of control in subtle, methodical ways that bide their time before hitting you all at once.
The hauntingly beautiful Japanese drama takes audiences on an unforgettable journey alongside protagonist Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), sharing in his experiences of love, loss and acceptance.
Although Drive My Car is not exactly what many people would describe as a highly dramatic film, a great deal happens in it, and its multiple threads are gradually interwoven with great skill by Hamaguchi.
At a time when there are real worries over the future of low-to-mid-budget cinema intended for adults that’s cape and explosion-free, Drive My Car possesses an urgency that belies its calm exterior.
It’s mysterious, impenetrable, creeping forward on many fronts like a lava flow of ideas and nuance. It’s also throat-catchingly beautiful, as sad as a funeral, and wise in a way few films ever aspire to be.
Hamaguchi works quiet miracles, transforming Haruki Murakami's acclaimed 2014 short story into a model of screen adaptation that’s both literary and thrillingly emotional.
It’s an ode to a modest job well done. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s film takes all kinds of unexpected swerves from the sparse text it’s adapting. But it triumphs because it understands the weight of those little details.
What is exceptional about Drive My Car - and this may well account for all those five-star reviews - is Hamaguchi's uncommon lightness of touch... it is ultimately a film that works by accumulation: three hours of small, delicate observations about its characters that make those characters only more interesting to spend time with as characters.