Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is the first Japanese film ever to score an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. It’s also up for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best International Feature, and after slowly rolling out in limited release over the past few months (with arthouse blockbuster success), the film is now in over 100 theaters.
That’s a lot for an indie, but it’s tiny compared to the 3,280 theaters that Death on the Nile — which is an hour shorter than Drive My Car, but feels twice as long — opened to this weekend. If you’re not near any of the cities where Drive My Car is playing (the list is here), don’t worry, it’s coming to HBO Max on March 2. There goes your excuse.
DRIVE MY CAR zooms in to @hbomax 3/2! pic.twitter.com/Elq10MvAFi
— Janus Films (@janusfilms) February 14, 2022
Drive My Car follows stage director Yusuke Kafuku (played by Hidetoshi Nishijima) who, two years after his wife’s death, accepts an offer to direct a production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima, Japan. That’s where he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), who is assigned to drive him in his Saab 900. “Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, the official plot description reads, “Yusuke begins – with the help of his driver – to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind.”
Better start looking for a red Saab 900 now. They’re going to impossible to find once Drive My Car (hopefully) wins at least one Oscar on March 27.