Drive My Car

Drive My Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー, 2021) is a Japanese drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi and adapted from a short story by Haruki Murakami. Hidetoshi Nishijima plays Yusuke Kafuku, a stage director still living inside a grief he cannot name, two years after his wife's sudden death. A residency in Hiroshima brings him an assignment: stage Chekhov's Uncle Vanya with a multilingual cast.

The festival contract bars him from driving his own car — a red Saab he and his wife used to fill with her voice recordings of his scripts. His assigned driver turns out to be Misaki (Toko Midzumara), a young woman who says almost nothing. Hours together on the road, day after day, and eventually the silence breaks. What his wife knew and never told him. What Misaki carried alone for years.

Hamaguchi won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and the Cannes Prize for Best Screenplay for this film, one of more than fifty awards it collected worldwide. Nearly three hours long. It earns every minute. Watch Drive My Car (2021) online on iFILM.