Drive My Car

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Part of

Hamaguchi I & II

April 26 - 30, 2024

Inspired by a Haruki Murakami short story, Hamaguchi spins an engrossing, expansive epic about love and betrayal, grief and acceptance, charting the unexpected, complex relationships that a theater actor-director forges with a trio of people out of professional, physical, or psychological necessity.

DIRECTOR
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
YEAR
2021
COUNTRY
Japan
RUNTIME
179 minutes
LANGUAGE
Japanese with English subtitles

Inspired by a Haruki Murakami short story, Hamaguchi spins an engrossing, rapturous epic about love and betrayal, grief and acceptance. With his characteristic emotional transparency, Hamaguchi charts the unexpected, complex relationships that theater actor-director Yûsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) forges with a trio of people out of professional, physical, or psychological necessity: his wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima), with whom he shares an erotic bond forged in fantasy and storytelling; the mysterious actor Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), whom he’s drawn to by a sense of revenge as much as fascination; and, perhaps most mysteriously, Misaki (Tôko Miura), a plaintive young woman hired by a theater company, against his wishes, to be his chauffeur while he stages Uncle Vanya. Hamaguchi specializes in revelations of the heart, and Drive My Car—a beautiful melding of two distinct authorial sensibilities—consistently steers clear of the familiar in its characters’ journeys toward self-examination. Winner of the 2022 Oscar for Best International Feature Film and Best Screenplay at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. A Sideshow and Janus Films release. An NYFF59 Main Slate selection.

A quiet masterpiece…Drive My Car is a story about grief, love and work as well as the soul-sustaining, life-shaping power of art.

Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

At the simplest of its many intricate levels, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a masterpiece — haunting and true, melancholy and wise — inspired by another.

Justin Chang, L.A. Times
Drive My Car
Drive My Car
Drive My Car

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