---
title: "Drive My Car"
year: 2021
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/drive-my-car"
fi1m_score: 88
critics_score: 78
critics_reviews: 22
published: "2026-09-20T08:22:26.162330+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-20T08:22:37.897108+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Drive My Car (2021)

Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi · 2h 59m · MPA NR · Drama

**Fi1m score: 88** · Critics 78 from 22 reviews

*In a sentence:* A widower, a driver, a cassette of his dead wife reading Chekhov, and nobody in the car raises their voice

> Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s three-hour film about a widowed theatre director, his young driver and a multilingual *Uncle Vanya* is quiet, exact and, late on, more moving than we expected. It says too much aloud near the end. See it anyway.

## Synopsis

Tokyo. Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a stage actor and director, is married to Oto (Reika Kirishima), who writes for television and tells him stories after sex that become her scripts. He learns his lines in his red Saab from a cassette of Oto reading the other parts of *Uncle Vanya*. Home early from a cancelled flight, he sees her with a young actor, Kōshi Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), and says nothing. Then Oto dies. Two years later Kafuku goes to Hiroshima to direct *Vanya* with a cast performing in Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Korean Sign Language. The festival will not let him drive and assigns him Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a young woman who says little. Takatsuki turns up to audition.

## Review

Ryusuke Hamaguchi has taken a short story by Haruki Murakami and made a film that runs 179 minutes, and it is worth the whole of your evening. It is not slow in the way people mean when they warn you about a slow film. Things happen in it constantly, to people who have decided not to react, and the film waits for the moment when one of them does.

Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is a stage actor and director in Tokyo. His wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) writes for television, and the stories she tells him after sex become her scripts. He learns his lines in his red Saab from a cassette she has recorded of *Uncle Vanya*, every part but his. Hamaguchi and his co-writer Takamasa Ōe spend about forty minutes on this marriage before the title card, and it is the best-judged opening we have seen in a while: a home, a habit, a thing glimpsed through a doorway and never mentioned. Then Oto dies. Two years later Kafuku is in Hiroshima, directing *Vanya* with a cast speaking Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Korean Sign Language, and being driven by a young woman he did not ask for.

The driver is Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), from Hokkaido, cap pulled low, and Miura plays her so quietly it takes an hour to see how much she is doing. Kafuku’s first remark about her is that he cannot feel the car move. Hidetoshi Shinomiya and Lee Tae-hun shoot the Saab from outside at night, a red box on grey expressway, and from the back seat by day, two faces in the mirror not looking at each other. Seo Hyeon-Seon gives the rehearsal room a long table, bare walls and a window onto the water, so the reading sessions look like work. Haruki Koketsu puts Kafuku in greys and Misaki in one dark jacket for the whole film.

Kafuku’s method is to have the cast read the play flat, round the table, with no feeling, for days. Hamaguchi lets us sit through enough of it to share the actors’ impatience. Then Lee Yoo-na (Park Yu-rim), who plays Sonya in Korean Sign Language, and Janice Chang (Sonia Yuan), who plays Yelena in Mandarin, run a scene on a park bench, and Kafuku stops the rehearsal to say that something happened. It had. We were moved more than we can quite account for, by two women doing Chekhov at each other in languages neither shares, and the reason is the flatness that came before. The film has trained us the way Kafuku trains his cast.

Jin Dae-yeon plays Gong Yoon-su, the festival’s Korean coordinator, who interprets and frets and gets the one dinner scene that made us laugh aloud. Masaki Okada plays Kōshi Takatsuki, the young television actor Kafuku casts as Vanya without saying why. Okada is handsome, eager and slightly wrong in every scene, and late on he is given a long speech in the back of the car, held on his face, that we will not describe. It is the best acting in the film, and Nishijima, listening, does not blink. Eiko Ishibashi’s score, with Yoshitaka Fujimoto, is a soft run of drums, bass and electric piano that arrives over the driving and stays out of the flat and the rehearsal room. Azusa Yamazaki cuts to the pace of the car, long on the road and shorter indoors. We did not check the time.

The flaw is in the last hour. Kafuku and Misaki take a long drive north, and what they have carried in silence for two hours they now say to each other in full sentences. It is well acted and well written and it is more than we needed, because Chekhov had already said it. A few critics found this stretch melodramatic. We would not go that far, but the film that trusted us in the car does not quite trust us in the snow. There is also a coda, which we will not describe, that puzzled us on first viewing and has stayed with us since.

Hamaguchi has made long films about people talking before, *Happy Hour* in 2015 among them, and this is the most controlled thing he has done: fewer people, fewer rooms, one car. It is a 15 certificate, for sex that is talked over more than shown, and it is three hours. Do not split it across two evenings. The last hour only works if you have sat through the first two.

*Fi1m score 88, published 20 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics take to this warmly, and the praise lands in the same places. The reviews single out Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s direction, and in particular the way he expands a short Murakami story into a three-hour film that most say never feels padded. The performances of Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura are widely admired for their restraint, and several critics point to the long conversations in the red Saab as the film’s centre, where grief and guilt are finally spoken aloud. The multilingual Uncle Vanya rehearsals and the script draw repeated mention.

The reservations are almost all about pace. Several find the film glacial, and a few warn that the Chekhov-heavy second half asks for the right mood. The spread is otherwise narrow, with two sharp dissents: Slant Magazine and The Wrap both admire the opening and think the later sections undo it, one blaming explanatory backstory, the other melodrama. HeyUGuys finds it obtuse for anyone new to Hamaguchi.

### Reviews we read (22)

- **Financial Times**, Danny Leigh (★★★★☆): The critic hails the low-key Japanese marvel about truth, loss and a red Saab, praising the subtle glide of the storytelling and the director’s deft handling of eccentric character traits as everyday. It singles out the car-tone sanctuary of the old red Saab carrying souls in transit amid grief and connection. [Read](https://www.ft.com/content/8fc10b01-3645-4b38-81d4-5b25a38579f4)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Justin Chang (90/100, inferred): The critic hails it as a haunting masterpiece of art and life, melancholy and wise. It follows an actor-director through experimental theater work and personal loss, finding catharsis in performance and human connection. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2021-11-29/drive-my-car-review-ryusuke-hamaguchi)
- **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (90/100, inferred): The review praises the film as an overwhelmingly powerful tale of guilt and confession centered on artists’ collaborations. It highlights the continuity between personal relationships and artistic achievements in a grandly literary drama. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/drive-my-car-reviewed-a-murakami-adaptation-about-sex-lies-and-art)
- **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (Critic's Pick): The critic calls the film a quiet masterpiece that considers grief, love, work, and the power of art. It expands on its source material to explore an actor-director’s emotional journey and unexpected connection with his driver. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/movies/drive-my-car-review.html)
- **Variety**, Guy Lodge (90/100, inferred): The review describes a deliberate, deeply moving tale of grief, renewal, and driving pleasure in this aching emotional epic. It adapts a short Murakami story into a slow, wise three-hour film that never feels overextended. [Read](https://variety.com/2021/film/reviews/drive-my-car-review-1235016509/)
- **Empire**, Ian Freer (85/100, inferred): The film is a beautiful, enigmatic picture that rewards attention despite its long runtime, with Hamaguchi's direction refined and the performances of Nishijima and Miura delivering modulated portraits of melancholy. It stands out as a visually striking work teeming with ideas about grief, betrayal and creativity, and the most successful cinematic Murakami adaptation. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/drive-my-car/)
- **Film Comment**, Adam Nayman (85/100, inferred): The critic praises Hamaguchi's expansion of the Murakami story into a three-hour drama that feels both claustrophobic and panoramic, highlighting the film's literary and dialogical power alongside a wordless coda evoking life's asymmetries. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/are-you-talking-to-me-ryusuke-hamaguchi-drive-my-car-wheel-of-fortune-and-fantasy-adam-nayman/)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (85/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a supremely confident Haruki Murakami adaptation about a widowed actor bonding with his chauffeur while exploring the creative process, jealousy and guilt. It praises the satisfying layers of storytelling and fluid score but notes the three-hour runtime and Chekhov-heavy second half may require the right mindset. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/nov/21/drive-my-car-review-ryusuke-hamaguchi-haruki-murakami)
- **The Telegraph** (80/100, inferred): The critic describes the three-hour film as profoundly beautiful and haunting, praising how it uses every second wisely in its tale of a bereaved actor-director and his red automobile, adapted from Murakami stories. It highlights the gradual, cool and clean style that builds to a dizzying effect on grief, infidelity and making peace with one's role. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2021/07/17/drive-car-cannes-review-profoundly-beautiful-haunting-murakami/)
- **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): Hamaguchi effectively adapts Murakami’s short story into a long but engaging film with intriguing narrative layers, attractive leads and a pleasant score. The director takes the source as a springboard, expanding it with twists while focusing on grief, secrecy and the car as a theatrical space. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/drive-my-car-cannes-review/5160842.article)
- **Sight and Sound** (70/100, inferred): The critic describes an understated and precise adaptation that reflects on language, emotion and loss through the central relationship between passenger and driver. The film finds intimacy in shared tasks and explores performance, memory and grief via extended rehearsals and road journeys. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/drive-my-car-meditative-trip-down-memory-lane-murakami-haruki-hamaguchi-ryusuke)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Stephen Dalton (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it a rambling but ultimately rewarding ride, praising its absorbing, technically assured exploration of love, loss, grieving and healing with poetic depths. The slow, ponderous three-hour pace and extended scenes are noted as drawbacks, but internalized performances and emotional payoffs in the closing act are singled out for praise. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/drive-my-car-cannes2021-1234980492/)
- **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★★★☆): The critic calls it a mesmerising three-hour meditation on the interior life of a theatre director, praising the glacial pace, lovely deadpan details about the wife’s creative process during sex, and the slow-burning narrative driven by infidelity and multilingual Uncle Vanya production. It notes a modicum of hope in the ending but only just. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/drive-my-car-review-a-mesmerising-three-hour-meditation-8vptn5dg3)
- **Slant Magazine** (30/100, inferred): The review highlights the film's voluptuous slowness and focus on the materiality of objects, textures, and surfaces in conveying mourning and longing, especially in the first act. It criticizes the later shift toward causal explanations and character backstories that dilute the initial opacity and sensuous appeal. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/drive-my-car-review-hamaguchi-ryusuke-murakami-haruki/)
- **NME**, Paul Bradshaw (5/5): The critic calls the film a melancholy three-hour epic about grief and self-deception that rewards patience, singling out its stunning direction, acting, and one of the best scripts in years for making earned emotion feel real. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/film-reviews/drive-my-car-review-the-beatles-3192231)
- **Collider**, Adam Grinwald (90/100, inferred): The critic calls it a brilliant, profound film that uses its long runtime to examine the complicated and pervasive power of grief with dramatic restraint and emotional resonance. Hamaguchi's patient pacing and focus on contradictory emotions in mourning are singled out for praise. [Read](https://collider.com/drive-my-car-portrays-complicated-nature-of-grief/)
- **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (90/100, inferred): The critic finds the three-hour film engaging throughout despite its length, praising its sharp insights into love, loss, marriage, grief and the truths of acting on stage and off. They highlight the exceptional performances, especially by Hidetoshi Nishijima and Toko Miura, and the way conversations in the car reveal vulnerability. [Read](https://deadline.com/2021/07/drive-my-car-cannes-review-japanese-competition-entry-1234790237/)
- **The Playlist**, Gregory Ellwood (A-): The critic praises it as a rich, skillfully layered masterwork with flawless performances and a script that sticks in the brain, noting its leisurely pace but finding the grounded ambitions captivating overall. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/drive-my-car-masterful-drama-cannes-20210711/)
- **Paste**, Natalia Keogan (8.3/10): The review praises the film's languorous, unhurried emotional introspection and its graceful expansion of Murakami's story into a melancholy meditation on pain, performance, and catharsis. The director's decisions to elongate quiet moments of conflict and revelation are highlighted as rewarding. [Read](https://www.pastemagazine.com/movies/ryusuke-hamaguchi/drive-my-car-review)
- **/Film**, Jason Gorber (8/10): The critic calls it an ambitious yet quietly confident film that enthralls over its long runtime with subtlety and care, highlighting powerful performances and a deft touch that draws viewers into the story without feeling boring. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/582639/drive-my-car-review-cannes/)
- **HeyUGuys**, Adam Solomons (65/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a beautifully shot and brilliantly acted spectacle about lasting traumas and how artists deal with them, but notes it never quite justifies its alienated approach to the source material and can feel obtuse, especially for newcomers or over its long runtime. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/drive-my-car-review/)
- **The Wrap** (30/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's strong opening prologue and its precise evocation of a fraught marriage but finds the later sections undermined by heavy-handed melodrama that fails to earn emotional investment. They note the many interesting flourishes and tangents but conclude the film sputters toward the end. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/drive-my-car-cannes-review/)

## Details

- **Director:** Ryusuke Hamaguchi
- **Director:** Ryusuke Hamaguchi
- **Screenplay:** Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Ōe
- **Cinematography:** Hidetoshi Shinomiya, Lee Tae-hun
- **Editor:** Azusa Yamazaki
- **Music:** Eiko Ishibashi, Yoshitaka Fujimoto
- **Production design:** Seo Hyeon-Seon
- **Costume design:** Haruki Koketsu
- **Producer:** Teruhisa Yamamoto
- **Cast:** Hidetoshi Nishijima as Yūsuke Kafuku; Toko Miura as Misaki Watari; Masaki Okada as Kōshi Takatsuki; Reika Kirishima as Oto Kafuku; Park Yu-rim as Lee Yoo-na; Jin Dae-yeon as Gong Yoon-su; Sonia Yuan as Janice Chang; Ahn Hwi-tae as Ryu Jong-ui
- **Runtime:** 2h 59m
- **Certificate (MPA):** NR
- **Release (the US):** 24 November 2021
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Also in:** [Best Picture winners](https://film.one/collections/oscar-best-picture.md) (Nominee, 2021)
- **Budget:** $1 million
- **Box office:** $15 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyDSxD51WRE

## Where to watch in the US

- Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $5.99, sd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, sd
- Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd

*Checked 2026-09-20.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BR, CA, CL, CO, DE, DK, FI, FR, GB, HK, IE, IN, IT, JP, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, SE, TR, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 2022: Best Picture (nominated); Best International Feature Film (won)
- FIPRESCI Grand Prix 2022: FIPRESCI Grand Prix (won)
- International Submission to the Academy Awards 2022: International Submission to the Academy Awards (nominated)
- Golden Globes 2021: Best Non-English Language Film (won)
- Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year 2021: Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year (won)

## If you liked this

- *Vanya on 42nd Street* (1994): Louis Malle films a rehearsal of the same play in a derelict theatre; talk, no sets.
- *Burning* (2018), Fi1m 72: Lee Chang-dong’s Murakami adaptation; slower, angrier, and it ends where this one starts. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/mississippi-burning.md)
- *Certified Copy* (2010), Fi1m 84: Kiarostami puts two people in a car in Tuscany and lets them argue about marriage. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/certified-copy.md)
- *Still Walking* (2008): Kore-eda’s family gathering; grief managed by cooking, with nobody saying the thing.
- *Happy Hour* (2015): Hamaguchi’s five-hour film about four friends in Kobe; longer, looser, same patience.

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/drive-my-car