Drive My Car · reception & legacy

2021 · Ryusuke Hamaguchi

How Drive My Car has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

It won Best Screenplay at Cannes in 2021, then just kept snowballing — sweeping the big US critics' prizes and becoming the first Japanese film ever nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Five years on it hasn't cooled off; it went almost straight from festival darling to consensus modern classic.

What's debated

The eternal fight is the three-hour runtime — 'hypnotic and earned' vs 'a critics' darling where nothing happens' — with a side debate among Hamaguchi heads over whether it's even his best film (the Happy Hour faction is loud).

Its footprint

The red Saab 900 became one of the decade's most recognizable movie images — instant Letterboxd-avatar material — and the opening credits famously not arriving until about 40 minutes in is a running joke and badge of honor among fans.

Where it stands

Instant Letterboxd-era canon: the 'you must have seen this' arthouse film of the 2020s and the standard gateway drug into Hamaguchi and contemporary Japanese cinema.

★ Did you know? In Haruki Murakami's original short story the Saab 900 is yellow — Hamaguchi changed it to red, partly so the car would pop against Hiroshima's landscapes; the production had originally planned to shoot in Busan, South Korea, before COVID forced the move to Hiroshima.

Named by the director

Influences Ryusuke Hamaguchi has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Jean Renoir — Hamaguchi said the film's emotionless table-read rehearsal method was drawn from Renoir's 'italienne' technique, which he discovered in a documentary of Renoir directing actors.
John Cassavetes — Hamaguchi's formative influence — he wrote his graduate thesis on Cassavetes and repeatedly cites him when discussing how he works with actors.