Why Drive My Car deserves to win Best Picture at the 2022 Oscars

February 27th, 2022 Oscars Ceremony. 10 movies will compete for Best Picture. Belfast, CODA, Don’t Look Up, Drive My Car, Dune, King Richard, Licorice Pizza, Nightmare Alley, Dog PowerAnd West Side Story. Each person has strengths and flaws, but any one could be the winner. In the lead-up to the Oscars, we’re making a case for why each of them might deserve to take the big prize.

WHAT’S THE MOVIE?

Drive My Car, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi from a short story by celebrated Japanese author Haruki Murakami.

WHAT’S THE STORY?

Renowned stage director Yûsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is quietly dealing with an overwhelming guilt and confusion about a series of events involving his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima). While processing these emotions alone, he leaves the Toyko area for a residency in Hiroshima, where he’s set to stage a version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya Multi-national actors in different languages. When a quiet, scarred woman named Misaki (Tôko Miura) is assigned as his driver for the project, he initially resists, but he eventually forms a bond with her, and with young actor Takatsuki (Masaki Okada). All three of his characters begin to share devastating secrets as the play gets closer to being performed.

WHAT’S THE CRED?

Drive My Car was a major critics’ darling in 2021, winning Best Picture awards from the critics’ associations in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Boston, as well as the National Society of Film Critics. Hamaguchi’s previous film, 2021’s Wheel of Fortune and FantasyIt was also highly appreciated, and its powerful stories, each with strong emotions, were well-respected for their exceptional cinematic storytelling. Murakami is also a major name here — the author of The Wind-Up Bird ChronicleAnd 1Q84 has been widely hailed as one of this era’s greatest living novelists.

WHY IS IT A WINNER?

The Best Picture nominations are often bolder and more vibrant than the others. Drive My Car is the year’s most ambitious nominee. It’s crafted with tremendous care that makes individual pieces stand out, from Yûsuke’s polite but clearly passionate struggles to reject Misaki without being rude to his hosts to Takatsuki’s electric Uncle Vanya Auditions, in which he attempts to impress his audience, by intimidating his stunned scene partner and even assaulting him, without consulting or consenting beforehand. But the big picture that pulls all those pieces together is the movie’s real appeal. The threads that link Yûsuke and Oto’s relationship with Takatsuki’s selfish behavior and Misaki’s thousand-yard-stare come together in a series of mesmerizing monologues that bring the rest of the film into sudden, sharp focus. It’s electrifying.

And the performances are some of the year’s best. Nishijima’s lack of affect through sex scenes, struggles with a cast confused by his directorial choices, and day-to-day interactions with his driver similarly take a while to come into focus as the behavior of a man fighting not to drown in his incalculable loss and guilt. This isn’t the kind of film that Academy Awards ceremony producers used to love, with big, screaming moments of performative drama. It’s subtle and richly considered, which makes it feel even more like a gift when the characters finally begin to reveal the things they’ve been hiding.

WHAT’S THE CATCH?

For one thing, there’s barely any precedent for non-English-language films winning Best Picture — in the nearly century-old history of the Academy Awards, only 16 non-English movies have even achieved nominations in the category, and Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 movie ParasiteWas the first ever to actually win.

You can also use the following: Drive My Car is a rarefied experience — three hours long, in a variety of languages (including Korean sign language, with one long, significant scene featuring no audible dialogue at all), and spending much of its runtime on silence, staged sequences from Uncle Vanya, Oto weaves elaborate tales about a teenager stalker at the end of long and hypnotic monologues. It isn’t the easiest or flashiest watch on the year’s Best Picture roster, and inevitably, some of the voters just aren’t going to give it the time and space it needs to weave its spell.

One great thing that no one should miss

Janus Films – Photo

One of Yûsuke’s signature tools for his plays is having his actors speak different languages — usually languages that they don’t have in common. English-speaking viewers may not be able to see the difference between the Japanese actors reading his lines and those speaking Korean, Mandarin or Filipino. (Which explains why they knock on their tables after each line — to signal the next actor that they’re done speaking.) Yûsuke doesn’t explain his purpose with the gimmick — it’s one of many things viewers will have to be patient about, and discover for themselves. The idea comes about in a remarkable outdoor rehearsal that involves two members of Yusuke’s cast, Park Yurim and Sonia Yuan. One speaks Mandarin while the other signs. Their quiet scene together becomes intimate and intense, and it’s a riveting moment.

WHERE CAN I WATCH IT?

Drive My Car It is currently playing in cinemas. However, the movie will arrive at HBO Max on March 2.

Previously:

Why? Don’t Look Up deserves to be the Best Picture
Why? Dog Power deserves the Best Picture
Why? West Side Storydeserves the Best Picture
It is important to understand why Belfastdeserves the Best Picture
Why? Nightmare Alleydeserves the Best Picture
Why? King Richardis the Best Picture
Why? Dunedeserves the Best Picture
Why? Licorice Pizzadeserves the Best Picture
Why? CODAdeserves the Best Picture