Film Review of Drive My Car (aka 在車上)

The movie is based on a fiction book written by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, whose writings are quite well known. It is a story of a famous stage player and director, Yûsuke Kafuku (played by Hidetoshi Nishijima) how to deals with the grief of his wife's (Oto Kafuku) death and the betrayal of his deceased wife, who had many relationships with other men.

Although the movie is three hours long and mainly supported by dialogue, I don't feel bored. The screening field is beautiful with lots of landscapes and minimalist-style indoors. All are clean and simple so it is quite comfortable while watching the movie. Although many scenes and dialogues seem to be unnecessary,  as a whole it hits your heart intensively.  

Facing Yourself In Grief

Yûsuke Kafuku was haunted by the betrayal of his wife which he knew a long time ago. But he pretended he didn't know and the reason for the betrayal haunted him even his wife passed away. Therefore, he cannot act anymore as that will bring the real side of him that he could no more bear with. As the story goes, he met a young driver, Misaki Watari, who was very quiet and emotionless and developed a friendship with her. The sad past history of the driver did a big wound on her that resulted in her quietness and maturity that didn't match her young age. There is a scene in which Yûsuke Kafuku had a conversation with one of his wife's lovers that he discovered that his wife has another side he had never known of. He was inspired by the conversation that what he didn't do well was trying to understand himself and her wife. Later on, through their expressing their own past and acknowledging their real feelings, they learned how to face their real selves at the end of the movie. It is heartwarming for an audience to watch how their friendships developed and changed who they were. 

  

Things Don't Always Make Sense                                                                                      

But facing yourself is only a part of healing the grief. The most important is to accept who you are and the things all happened, with no fancy and no attempt in making things in a sense.  One of the scenes is about Misaki Watari saying that her mother had two personalities and no matter if it was an acting or a real psychiatric problem, she believed that her mother was genuine. Therefore, she asked Yûsuke Kafuku was it so difficult to accept her wife was genuine and that her wife deeply loved him but at the same time engaged in different relationships. On a deeper thought, the two situations are not conflicting with each other in real life, there is always no guarantee on things happen in an explainable way. Yûsuke Kafuku understood and found the path to recovery.

Rating:4/5