“But even if you think you know someone well, even if you love that person deeply, you can’t completely look into that person’s heart.”

While Drive My Car is laden with excellent quotes, if there is a line in Drive My Car that could serve as the thesis for the entire film, it would be this one. It is impossible to ever fully open up to someone, no matter how hard you try. There will always be things that they will never be able to understand or that you will never be able to share. And similarly, you as the audience will never fully “understand” the characters featured in Drive My Car, as condescending as that may sound. We don’t get an explanation for why they make every decision they do. Most of them do not wear their emotions on their sleeves. This is especially true of our protagonist, Kafuku Yusuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima). After an event that occurs in the 40-minute-long prologue, he is left to process his emotions and his grief alone. Two years later, he still carries the weight of this event with him, and our film begins here, while he is beginning to direct a play he produced. Drive My Car is an excellent 3-hour-long slow burn that is primarily about grief and how its characters express it.

The plot of Drive My Car is deceptively simple. On the surface level, its premise may come off as a mix between a Green Book-esque plot (where the driver and the passenger have initial misgivings about each other, but they learn to trust each other and bond over time) and a generic play production story. However, it is far more than both of these things, and that is largely due to the stellar screenplay. It is incredibly nuanced and weaves between both storylines gracefully while also keeping the film’s central theme present throughout, especially in its characters.

Speaking of which, the film has very well-written and well-acted characters that serve as excellent foils and parallels to one another. Yusuke, our previously mentioned protagonist, is fairly stoic for most of the film. His passion is writing and directing plays, but even when he does this, he’s rarely emotional. This is a direct contrast to Takatsuki Koji (Masaki Okada), an actor who can’t control his emotions and who knows Yusuke’s grief all too well. Their dynamic in the film is incredibly engaging yet simultaneously heartbreaking, and nearly every time they’re onscreen together, you can be sure one of the best scenes in the film is about to be witnessed (plus some of the film’s best dialogue). Yusuke also develops a strong bond with Watari Misaki (Toko Miura), his car driver, who, in contrast with Koji, is quite similar to Yusuke personality-wise. They’re both fairly stoic characters, and while their relationship initially isn’t exactly the most engrossing aspect of the film, over time, it develops into something strong and emotional. Their dynamic wound up being my favorite thing about the film and seeing these two kindred souls slowly open up to each other was something I couldn’t bear to look away from. These three central characters give the best performances in the film, but while most of the other characters don’t get nearly as much to do, the entire cast is excellent regardless (with a special shout-out to Park Yoo-Rim, who steals every scene she’s in).

The direction of Drive My Car isn’t as blatantly masterful as the dialogue or the characters, but it sort of sneaks up on you and leaves an impact by the end. The editing isn’t anything astonishing, but the movie is paced well for a 3 hour long slow burn, and it owes a decent chunk of that to said editing. There’s nothing else truly noteworthy about Drive My Car from a technical standpoint, it’s just generally solid in that regard.

All in all, Drive My Car is an exquisitely written film that explores grief in a powerful, moving way. It features three of the best characters of the year who bring to life the best dialogue of the year. Although the runtime may scare you, the film does not drag, and you will likely find yourself deeply invested throughout. Drive My Car is a film that has stuck with me, and it deserves to be given a shot despite its length. It is one of the best films of 2021, and I cannot recommend it enough.

10/10