AwardsWatch - Trailer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Cannes-winning ‘Drive My Car,’ Japan’s Oscar entry

Trailer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Cannes-winning ‘Drive My Car,’ Japan’s Oscar entry

Adapted from Haruki Murakami’s short story, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a winner of three prizes at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival: Best Screenplay, Ecumenical Jury Prize, and the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize.

Two years after his wife’s unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. As the production’s premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koji Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke’s late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins – with the help of his driver – to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind.

Review: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 3-hour ‘Drive My Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー)’ is a detailed and meticulous ride that will quietly reward your patience [Grade: B+]

Drive My Car is Japan’s official International Feature Film Oscar entry for the 94th Academy Awards. It opens in NY on November 24 and LA on December 3.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.