Cruising For An (Emotional) Bruising Or: The DRIVE MY CAR Review

It’s an area that hardly needs much critical analysis, but a film’s length can (subconsciously or not) act as an initial barometer for how that particular work is approached. There are arguments to be had for what exactly is the “perfect” runtime for a movie, whether that be at or below the seemingly agreed 90-minute space or, usually heard from a slightly more pretentious crowd, a time-spanning length of 2 or more hours. Indeed, if one was to see a film’s runtime prior to actually seeing the work itself, it would be wise to assume any film over 2 hours nowadays is either another superhero film or some sort of prospective Oscar darling. But even if films clock in at over 2 hours, a timely length doesn’t always result in a good film (see: the numerous middling aforementioned superhero movies and even the more “serious” aforementioned aspiring Oscar works that more than overstay their welcome). As numerous movies have shown, it’s a delicate and particular art to make a gargantuan runtime actually work. At just a minute below 3 hours, in comes Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s DRIVE MY CAR, a truly meditative depiction of one man trying to juggle his internal tragedies alongside putting on a successful stage adaptation of UNCLE VANYA. Even in the presence of a laborious runtime, the film manages to to make its lofty length integral to the story it tells.

Adapted from a clump of short stories by Haruki Murakami, DRIVE MY CAR spaces those comparatively bite sized stories and expands its emotions and themes through its 3-hour runtime. Where other films would start at where this film drops its title credits (infamously 40 minutes in), Hamaguchi has his audience thrown into a quiet emotional fugue state at the same time the film’s protagonist, acclaimed stage director and actor, Yūsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima), experiences it. Revealing the extent of what exactly has Yūsuke ambling coldly through his latest production of UNCLE VANYA so early on turns an observation of grief into a depiction of what feelings and mysteries are left for the survivors of a deceased loved one. For Yūsuke, the only comforts in his world now are the upcoming production and his vibrantly red Saab 900, but both of those comforts ultimately act as catalysts for the man to confront his closed off emotions, the former through its suspiciously coincidental mirroring to Yūsuke’s own current emotional state and the latter through his conversations with his mandated personal chauffeur, Misaki (Tōko Miura), a woman ineffectively nursing her own emotional wounds. Throughout its 3-hour runtime, DRIVE MY CAR depicts the turbulence of both internal reckoning and the stresses (and joys) of putting together a stage production. While my own enjoyment mostly popped up in Hamaguchi’s on-the-ground and seemingly authentic portrayal of a stage play coming together with its multiple scenes of line readings and practices, the story of Yusuke’s own grief ends up feeling more heightened by the time the film reaches its quiet final scene, a finale that miraculously provides the emotionally cathartic fruits of its long running labor.

In an at times almost too subdued performance, Mr. Nishijima harbors a silent brilliance in his performance of a grieving man and it all comes thanks to DRIVE MY CAR’s and Hamaguchi’s patient storytelling. In a shorter film, Yūsuke’s journey could probably manage to get to the point it reaches in its 3 hours, but in the presence of an extended space, Nishijima is allowed to patiently develop Yūsuke's emotional odyssey. Grief in all its forms usually isn’t solved in 90 minutes or even three hours (in fact, it probably is never solved) and DRIVE MY CAR captures that never-ending feeling thanks in part to its maximalist length, where Yūsuke’s emotional ghosts haunt his every move. The supporting players also benefit from the lofty runtime, with pretty much every character and performer getting the chance to breathe genuine life into the film. Outside of Masaki Okada’s character — a brash yet talented performer given the chance to lead Yūsuke's production whose plot thread is the only one that wades close to melodrama —every other character Yūsuke runs into is ingrained with such an effortless air of lived-in personality that Hamaguchi could’ve made an interesting single film about any of them if he so pleased.

Even with all its presence of life that so many other films fail to capture with just one of their characters, DRIVE MY CAR still had me actively feeling its 3-hour runtime. It’s a contemplative film, as it should be, but in those moments where Hamaguchi and his characters sit in the silence, the repetition of those moments can sometimes snap one out of the film’s, at times, uniquely humanistic aura. But what an aura it creates as the combination of Hidetoshi Shinomiya’s crisp and quiet cinematography mixed with Eiko Ishibashi’s comforting score enhances the natural beauty of Japan that surrounds the morose Yūsuke. Even as his characters grapple with the griefs and stresses of life, Hamaguchi manages to accentuate the natural beauty that constantly surrounds them as if saying “Things may be bad, but the beauty of life is always there.” But even then the filmmaker can’t quite shake the sorrow that follows his main character, ultimately imbuing his visuals and sounds with a sort of bittersweet beauty.

In a single watch, DRIVE MY CAR can feel like a task more than a piece of art, but that can’t quite negate the human-ness operating in it all. There are movies that make you feel something and there are movies that capture what you feel; at its best DRIVE MY CAR moves past the screen and peers into the complicated emotions roiling within us. It can result in a long (and sometimes tedious) journey — but it takes skill to reveal, for even the slightest moments, the things that drive and haunt us.

3/5