Drive My Car

“While Drive My Car counts as an easy win for multiculturalism, a male gaze persists throughout the film.”

Title: Drive My Car (2021) / Japanese: ドライブ・マイ・カー
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi 👨🏻🇯🇵
Writers: Ryusuke Hamaguchi 👨🏻🇯🇵 and Takamasa Oe 👨🏻🇯🇵 based on the short story by Haruki Murakami 👨🏻🇯🇵

Reviewed by Li 👩🏻🇺🇸

—MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 3.75/5

Not meant for restless viewers, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 3-hour epic Drive My Car requires a decluttered mind (and a comfortable seat) in order to be fully appreciated. But if you can manage to lock in, the payoff is immense.

Headliners like Hidetoshi Nishijima, who plays a bereaved stage director named Yusuke, and Toko Miura who plays his driver Misaki, present internal performances that slowly reveal chasms of grief through which their characters bond over. This patient excavation drags over the nuts and bolts of what takes place on screen: Yusuke leads a theater workshop for a multilingual adaptation of playwright Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Drive My Car’s moving conclusion, performed during the in-film staging of Uncle Vanya, takes place in near-complete silence and proves that a movie doesn’t need showy aesthetics or crying jags to impress its audience.

Gender: 3.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES, but barely

While Yusuke’s 23-year-old driver Misaki enjoys a backstory and an in-depth emotional arc, Yusuke’s wife Oto (Reika Kirishima) sinks into some gender-related pitfalls. For starters, she kicks off the film with a classic male gaze: Nude and disembodied, viewers observe her flawless back and flared hips as she’s lit by a large window, mysterious and unknowable. In contrast, her husband Yusuke may be shirtless but we greet his face right away, this humanizing technique only afforded the feminine silhouette of Oto several minutes after she narrates an inscrutable fable.

Her objectification lasts throughout the film. Oto’s death, which takes place off screen thirty minutes in, “begins” the narrative as title credits finally roll. Her passing serves as an unapologetic plot point, one that feels exacerbated by the additional death of their daughter being the fuel for Yusuke’s movie-long exploration of loss.

And even though Misaki’s parallel journey mirrors his, given equal depth and also concerning a female relationship (in this case, Misaki holds complicated feelings toward her mother), it’s Yusuke who takes center stage. Quite literally, the film culminates in Yusuke’s performance as the titular Vanya while Misaki watches him from the audience with wide eyes, their physical positions reflecting the film’s overall dynamics. The final epilogue does end on a scene of Misaki, but by then it’s too little and too late to truly consider her an equally-billed protagonist.

Race: 5/5

Much has been made about Asian storytelling finally breaking through the Academy Awards’ bamboo ceiling, starting with Joon-ho Bong’s Parasite winning Best Picture in 2020 followed by Beijing-born director Chloé Zhao nabbing the same award for Nomadland last year. It’s wonderful to see appreciation for East Asian directors continue with Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, which currently sits as a Best Picture nominee for 2022.

The Japanese film features a multicultural cast, given its premise of Yusuke directing an adaptation of Uncle Vanya with actors from different nationalities. In addition to Japanese leads Nishijima, Miura, Oto’s Kirishima and Masaki Okada as the youthful celebrity with a dark side, significant supporting roles go to Korean talent. Yu-rim Park plays Yoon-a Lee who uses Korean Sign Language to communicate and is married to one of Uncle Vanya’s producers, Yoon-su Kon (Dae-yeon Jin). In smaller parts, Janice Chang (Sonia Yuan) speaks Mandarin while Roy Lucelo (Perry Dizon) performs on stage in Tagalog. Given the film’s warm welcome of multiculturalism, it’s no wonder this category passes with flying colors.

Bonus for Disability: +0.25

Yoon-a is a nonspeaking character who communicates with Korean Sign Language. As for whether or not the role is cast authentically, in an interview with Kobe Planet Film Archive, Hamaguchi mentions that after Park’s successful audition she worked with a sign language coach for several months—likely meaning that Park isn’t native to the language. While I can’t personally speak to the fluency of her signing (and would happily solicit comments from viewers with more expertise!), the character of Yoon-a feels positive and normalized. She lives a pleasant, simple life with her husband and dog and displays agency, auditioning for Uncle Vanya and securing a role through her own talents.

Other instances of disability briefly arrive through the mention of Misaki’s abusive mother having had dissociative identity disorder (DID), with her second personality being a kind-hearted woman whom Misaki adored. This narrative decision feels a bit sensationalized—DID personalities seldom veer to such extremes, yet it’s the only portrayal we tend to see in films like Split (2016) that like to paint people with DID as violent. On the other hand, Misaki’s small facial scar is treated with neither fanfare nor outright disregard, which makes for a positive approach to characters with facial differences.

Mediaversity Grade: B+ 4.17/5

While Drive My Car counts as an easy win for multiculturalism, a male gaze persists throughout the film. Disability is treated sensitively, if inauthentically.

Like Drive My Car? Try these other films that prominently feature the road.

Grade: BLiFebruary 16, 2022