Best Pictures #79: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Nightmare Alley (2021)

 by A.J. 

Best Pictures #79: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Nightmare Alley (2021)

“Mister, I was born for it.”

I always look forward to the new Guillermo del Toro movie no matter the genre or premise. So much care and consideration and enthusiasm goes into every aspect of a movie that if it misses in one way, it still connects in another. There is always something interesting. This is true of del Toro’s Nightmare Alley. Even though I didn’t entirely enjoy it, I know I will see it again because so much about it lingers in my mind. 

Bradley Cooper plays Stanton Carlisle, a quiet drifter who lands a job at a carnival during the late 1930’s. He listens and observes and comes across as a blank. He learns about the carnival, the flashy side of showmanship and its dirty secrets. Zeena (Toni Collette), the resident psychic/mind reader, takes him under her wing. Along with her severely alcoholic husband (David Strathairn), a now retired mentalist, Stanton helps with her show, all the while picking up how they "read the minds" of the audience. Then he starts talking, finds a stage and romantic partner in Molly (Rooney Mara), finds success, and stops listening and observing. He should have quit while he was ahead, but that’s not who he is and that’s not the kind of movie this is. (If you stop the movie at a certain point about a third of the way through, it’s a happy ending for most of the characters.)

The production design, costumes, and cinematography have all received Oscar nominations which is no real surprise since they are all quite remarkable. The production design and costumes are everything you expect from a Guillermo Del Toro movie set in the 1930’s that takes place in part at a carnival. The whole film is filled with intriguing, memorable imagery whether it is in the rundown carnival (the least whimsical carnival you’ve ever seen outside of a proper horror movie) or the large open spaces of the wealthy. The cavernous office of psychiatrist Dr. Lilith (Cate Blanchett), with whom Stanton partners for a dangerously ambitious con, evokes feelings of discomfort and danger. 

This is a dark film thematically. The original 1947 version, directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Tyrone Power, and del Toro’s version both qualify as Film Noirs: exploring a dark, seedy world and its characters that proper, mainstream society turns away from. The 1947 version remains an effective, gripping, and intense movie despite the restrictions of the Production Code. It mixes in more humanity than the new version, making it more of a tragedy and giving it in some ways a more powerful ending. 

More than one source I found described the 1946 novel, written by William Lindsay Gresham, as bleak. This new adaptation, written by del Toro and Kim Morgan, does not shy away from bleakness. Both versions include the lowest of the carnival performers, the geek, who bites the heads off chickens or snakes. Of course del Toro’s version is more upfront and graphic about showing what the geek does and how someone becomes a geek. “Man or beast?” the barker asks the crowd. It is a man, of course, usually a desperate alcoholic who is manipulated into taking the job and then controlled by feeding his addiction. There aren’t many sympathetic characters here. Controlling the geek or looking the other way is routine for the carnival. Learning the tricks of mentalism, how to do a cold reading on a stranger and trick them into revealing details about themselves, is an exciting thing at first. Then comes exploitation and hubris. The world of wealthy socialites is not much different, just with nicer clothes. Guillermo del Toro has given us many movies about monsters that act like humans, now he’s given us a movie about humans that act like monsters. 

Nominees: Guillermo del Toro, J. Miles Dale, Bradley Cooper, producers

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro & Kim Morgan

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Toni Collette, Rooney Mara

Release Date: December 17th, 2021

Production Companies:TSG Entertainment, Double Dare You Productions

Distributor: Searchlight Pictures

Total Nominations: 4, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Cinematography- Dan Laustsen; Production Design-Tamara Deverell (production design), Shane Vieau (set decoration); Costume Design-Luis Sequeira

Best Pictures #78: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: King Richard

 by A.J. 

Best Pictures #78: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

King Richard 

“No, brother, I got the next two Michael Jordans.”

The great thing about sports movies is that you don’t have to understand or even like the sport to enjoy the movie. It helps that most sports movies, at least the better ones, aren’t really about sports but focus on their characters, fictional or real. King Richard is a biopic not really about tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams, but about their father, Richard Williams and how he struggled, hustled, and charmed a path for his daughters into the world of professional tennis. Overall, this is a good story with interesting characters because both are real. Richard’s story is of course a part of Venus and Serena’s origin story, but I was caught off guard by just how little Venus and Serena feature in this movie. 

It helps that Richard is played by Will Smith in his best role giving his best performance in a long time. Richard is a big personality and Smith puts his winning on screen persona to work making Richard confident but not arrogant, determined but not obdurate, charming but not cloying. This is not a warts and all portrayal, but it fits the tone of the movie and is satisfying nonetheless thanks to Smith’s solid performance. Venus and Serena’s mother, Oracene 'Brandy' Williams (Aunjanue Ellis with an Oscar nominated performance), has some substantial and memorable scenes that elevate her role beyond the stock  “wife and mother” archetype and make clear to the audience her contributions to Venus and Serena’s training.

Richard works nights as a security guard and spends nearly every available moment taking his daughters to the local tennis courts in Compton, where they are harassed and Richard receives beatings periodically from gang members. His other available moments are spent trying to find a professional coach for Venus (Saniyya Sidney) and Serena (Demi Singleton). His pitch is very good, but getting someone to coach two kids for free, and to do it Richard’s way, is a hard sell. The Oscar nominated screenplay by Zach Baylin makes it clear that convincing tennis pros is only part of the challenge. As you might imagine, the Williams’s stand out in the predominantly white and upper class world of tennis. Certain people in the professional circuit seem supportive at first but it becomes clear they see the uniqueness of the Williams sisters’ race, not so much their talent, as a novelty they can exploit. 

King Richard is certainly a step above the typical inspirational sports movie or biopic, true or not, about persevering and overcoming obstacles. It is not formulaic in a paint-by-numbers way, but it follows a familiar pattern. The movie does get repetitive at times with Richard charming then clashing with one trainer, Paul Cohen (Tony Goldwyn) then the next, Rick Macci (Jon Bernthal), and the scenes of training and training. Richard holds back on letting them enter the professional circuit after seeing how kids burn out and break down from the pressure and stress of the tournament cycle. It’s the right decision, but we’ve seen them train and know what they will later accomplish so there is not much tension to the tennis match scenes later in the movie.

If you're like me and know little of the world of professional tennis, you probably, like me, know that Venus and Serena Williams are regarded as two of the greatest and most accomplished athletes in their sport. Richard was right, and that’s not a spoiler. I’ll be honest, King Richard is the film I keep forgetting is nominated for Best Picture. I don’t mean to say that the film itself is forgettable or bad, actually it's pretty good, but unlike its subjects it is not especially outstanding. If King Richard earns Will Smith a Best Actor Oscar that will be the most memorable thing about it. 

Nominees: Tim White, Trevor White, Will Smith, producers

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Screenplay: Zach Baylin

Cast: Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis, Saniyya Sidney, Demi Singleton, Jon Bernthal, Tony Goldwyn

Release Date: November 19th, 2021

Production Companies: Westbrook Studios, Star Thrower Entertainment, Keepin' It Reel

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Total Nominations: 6, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Actor-Will Smith; Supporting Actress-Aunjanue Ellis; Original Screenplay-Zach Baylin; Editing-Pamela Martin; Original Song-"Be Alive" music and lyrics by Beyoncé, Dixson

Best Pictures #77: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: West Side Story (2021)

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #77: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

West Side Story (2021)

“Life can be bright in America/If you can fight in America/Life is all right in America/If you're all white in America.”

Nearly every remake is unnecessary. The first exceptions that come to mind are John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon, John Carpenter’s The Thing, and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Each of these remakes found an approach that made the source material more effective on film, or expanded or modernized the story, or approached it from a different angle. Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, nominated for a total of 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Director, makes slight changes here and there to the original and none of them help in any way. The 1957 Broadway musical and 1961 movie version updated the story of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the present day (at the time), moved the setting to a then blue collar, multiracial neighborhood in Manhattan, and injected the story with a youthful, lively energy by making it a musical and casting young people as the leads (the first film version of Romeo and Juliet to cast young people in the title roles wouldn't happen until 1968). It may feel dated or classic now, but it also feels very of its moment.

This version keeps the story in late 1950’s Manhattan with the only real update being smoothing over the more uncomfortable racial aspects of the original. Actual Latin actors play the Latin characters and are given more screen time and background. The Upper West Side is shown in the process of being demolished to make way for Lincoln Center (the opening scene of the original movie was filmed where my alma mater, Fordham University Lincoln Center, now stands). The white gang, the Jets, and the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, are both the victims of gentrification, but this isn’t really explored beyond signs for demolition and new construction and a protest against evictions in the background.  

One night, Maria (Rachel Zegler) sees Tony (Ansel Elgort) across the dance floor and they meet behind behind the bleachers where he happens to be, seemingly lurking. They kiss and their fates are sealed. Unfortunately Zegler and Elgort don’t have much chemistry which is not good for a Romeo and Juliet adaptation. Scenes with Tony and Maria, even the balcony number, aren’t very compelling and that is when my focus began to wander. The less time between when the lovers meet and when they are married, symbolically or actually, the better. Otherwise, they might go on a boring date to the Cloisters museum and you would wonder why Maria wants to even be around this incredibly dull young man. Ansel Elgort is stiff as a board (I totally unintentionally spelled that “bored'' the first time) in nearly every scene. His lack of charm and charisma nearly sink the whole film, but everything else works well enough to keep the movie afloat. It helps that the real stars of the movie are the songs and dancing. 

Rachel Zegler gives a good performance as Maria but is overshadowed by the more interesting characters: Bernardo (David Alvarez), her brother and leader of the Sharks, and her best friend, Anita (Ariana DeBose, in a standout, Oscar nominated performance). Tony’s hotheaded friend, Riff , is not a very complex character but he is an exciting one thanks to a great performance by Mike Faist. Rita Moreno, who won an Oscar for playing Anita in the original, is cast as the owner of the store where Tony works. Her presence is always welcome (whether she was in the original version of something or not) and she can’t help but be good, but the film seems to rely on her to lend it credibility.  

The cinematography by Janusz Kaminski is dazzling and uses lens flair and faux spotlights with great frequency but also to great effect. The production design and costumes are also great and eye catching, as you might expect. All have received Oscar nominations. The “rumble” scene in a salt warehouse is an exciting scene from start to finish that makes great use of all three elements. 

It took me a while to catch on that the order of songs had been changed and also who sings them. In the original, Riff and the Jets sing “Gee, Officer Krupke”, a song mocking the policeman always harassing them, directly to Officer Krupke, which is a pretty daring and defiant thing to do to a cop. Here, the Jets, sans Riff, sing it while waiting around in lock up after Officer Krupke has left. Tony is given more songs to sing which is a mistake. After the "rumble" scene there are only two songs, both of which are downbeat, and the movie really loses steam. These changes feel arbitrary and detrimental to the songs’ effectiveness and the flow of the story. It turns out that the creators of the original West Side Story thought out which order would make the songs most effective and found the best way. 

Is this version of West Side Story bad? No. Is it good? I suppose. I guess changing the order of the songs was one of the only ways this version could distinguish itself from the original. The sensibilities about race and gender and the acting styles have changed, but nothing else is really different. This is still the same story from 1957 that spoke to that era. A version of the story from Bernardo or Anita’s perspective or more directly dealing with gentrification or modern racial dynamics would mean the story would change. New songs would be required. If the plot or time period or setting were significantly changed then it wouldn’t be West Side Story. Spielberg and company set out to do West Side Story and that’s what they did.

P.S.

There is another movie musical from 2021 based on a Broadway show about a Hispanic/Latin neighborhood in Manhattan undergoing changes like gentrification with charming, lively characters dealing with these changes while also trying to live their idea of the American dream...and none of the characters are even in a gang or wield a knife. It is In the Heights, relatable and moving no matter your background or location, and it is the best movie of 2021. 

Nominees: Steven Spielberg, Kristie Macosko Krieger, producers

Director: Steven Speilberg

Screenplay: Tony Kushner; based on the stage play, book by Arthur Laurents

Cast: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, Rita Moreno

Release Date: December 10, 2021

Production Companies: Amblin Entertainment, TSG Entertainment

Distributor: 20th Century Studios

Total Nominations: 7, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Supporting Actress-Ariana DeBose; Director-Steven Spielberg; Cinematography-Janusz Kaminski; Costume Design-Paul Tazewell; Production Design-Adam Stockhausen (production design), Rena DeAngelo (set decoration); Sound-Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson, Shawn Murphy

Best Pictures #76: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Belfast

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #76: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Belfast

“There are no roads to Shangri-La from Belfast.” 

Kenneth Branagh can be brilliant (Much Ado About Nothing) when not insufferable (Murder on the Orient Express, Love’s Labour's Lost), or sometimes both (All is True, Hamlet), so I was unsure of what to expect from his semi-autobiographical story about a young boy in Belfast in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. It turns out that Belfast, which Branagh wrote and directed, is one of his better films, maybe one of his best. Belfast is filled with charm, tenderness, comedy, and drama all set precariously on the tinderbox of the beginning of the violent conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland that would last for decades and become known as “The Troubles.”

The film begins in August 1969 as young Buddy (Jude Hill) enjoys a sunny, joyful day with other neighbor children and relatives on the streets of his little neighborhood that seemingly out of nowhere explodes into a riot. His mother (Caitriona Balfe), whisks him away to their house, using the trash can lid Buddy had been pretending was a shield as a real shield against the bricks and rocks being thrown by the angry mob. Buddy’s father (Jaime Dornan) is away for weeks at time working in England where he has been offered a permanent job. A small-time neighborhood gangster turned vigilante gang leader lurks around the family and pressures Buddy’s father to join or pay up. Pa and Ma want no part in the conflict, only a safe life for their family. Buddy’s primary confidant is his grandfather, Pop, (Ciarán Hinds in a wonderful and rightfully Oscar nominated performance), who gives Buddy advice about the girl he has a crush on. Judi Dench is a welcome addition to the cast as Granny, usually heard loud and clear even when she is in the background of a shot. 

Belfast isn’t so much sentimental as it is nostalgic and wistful. It plays like a memory, not romanticizing the past but recalling how the small joys of life (talks with Pop, adventures with cousins, school projects with a crush) existed right alongside the stresses and dangers that Buddy only half understands but the film fully conveys (overheard conversations about money, living in an undeclared war zone). This is by no means a gritty or violent movie but the threat of violence is ever present. When the vigilante gang leader punches a neighbor it is a shocking moment for Buddy to witness. The riots Buddy and the rest of his family get caught in are chaotic and frightening. The stress these events, in addition to money problems, places on the family is fully felt thanks to the performances of Balfe and Dornan.  

The opening and closing shots of modern day Belfast are in bold and striking color. The rest of the film, not exactly a flashback, is shot in stunning black and white, each scene carefully composed not just to catch the eye but to evoke the feeling of a living memory. Time and place are brought to life and the block where Buddy lives, the school, the movie theater are effectively conveyed as the entire world to Buddy and the rest of the characters. I’ll never understand how the brilliant cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos did not receive an Academy Award nomination. 

Perhaps the most enchanting element of Belfast is Buddy’s love for the movies. Films like One Million Years B.C and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang are shown in full color, capturing the spell they cast on young Buddy and his family. In a magnificent shot we see the color images of a movie reflected in Judi Dench’s glasses; the rest of the shot is in black and white. The scenes of Buddy watching black and white films like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon are no less magical. We see the characters get a brief reprieve from reality but also see reality reflected indirectly back at them–the theme from High Noon plays over the climax because that is how Buddy can comprehend the situation. The close ups of Buddy and his family looking up at the screen in wonder and delight reminded me of something François Truffaut said to Gene Siskel: the most beautiful sight in a movie theater is to walk down to the front, turn around, and look at the light from the screen reflected on the upturned faces of the members of the audience. Branagh surely agrees and captures the effect wonderfully. 

Belfast is a brilliant film with thankfully only two brief touches of insufferableness (Branagh referencing his own films with a close up of an Agatha Christie novel and a shot of Buddy reading a Thor comic book). It does not go for easy sentiment or try to be a tear-jerker. Even in emotional moments it resists tugging hard at heartstrings. Instead it stirs great emotions and pathos through its characters and their feelings for each other. Branagh’s film reminded me at different times of To Kill a Mockingbird, Hope and Glory, the better parts of Cinema Paradiso, Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, Fellini’s Amarcord, and Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma. That’s good company to be in. 

It is worth noting that there is an alternate and thankfully unused ending that is maybe the worst thing Kenneth Branagh has ever directed. It has Branagh as adult Buddy returning to his childhood neighborhood and plays like a tourism advertisement for Belfast. It is full of cliched dialogue and the mawkish sentimentality and trappings of nostalgia the rest of the film so successfully avoided. To have included this ending would have been diabolical. Thankfully Branagh cut this ending, one of his wisest decisions as a director, and the version that exists earned 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Director, and is one of the best films of 2021.

Nominees: Laura Berwick, Kenneth Branagh, Becca Kovacik, Tamar Thomas, producers

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Screenplay: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Jude Hill, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Judi Dench

Release Date: November 12th, 2021

Production Companies: Northern Ireland Screen, TKBC

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Total Nominations: 7, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Director-Kenneth Branagh; Original Screenplay-Kenneth Branagh; Supporting Actor-Ciarán Hinds; Supporting Actress-Judi Dench; Original Song-Van Morrison for "Down to Joy"; Sound-Denise Yarde, Simon Chase, James Mather, Niv Adiri

Best Pictures #75: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Don’t Look Up

 by A.J. 

Best Pictures #75: 2021 (94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Don’t Look Up

 

“You guys discovered a comet? That's so dope. I have a tattoo of a shooting star on my back.”

It is entirely possible to care about pop culture and the climate crisis. Just because you are interested in a celebrity break up or a subpar movie on Netflix doesn’t mean you have no concern for the condition of the world and its future. These things are not mutually exclusive. Neither are comedy and serious issues, or even comedy and earnestness. With Don’t Look Up it seems that director Adam McKay and co-writer David Sirota believe that such concerns are an either/or matter and their film vacillates between comedy and stone-cold seriousness. A balance is never found. Don’t Look Up aims to be a satire on the level of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove—a worthy goal, especially for a film meant to be about climate change. However, to satirize the Cold War, Kubrick made a film that was actually about how a nuclear Armageddon could happen because of foolish politicians and in spite of the best efforts of concerned individuals. To satirize the blending of news and entertainment, Paddy Chayefsky wrote a movie about the blending of news and entertainment, Network. To tackle the climate crisis, Don’t Look Up gives us an allegory full of unfocused anger lashing out at everyone, audience included. Instead of commentary on contemporary culture (both political and pop) we get condescension. Recent years have made satire even more difficult to do effectively. You need to use a scalpel. McKay uses a sledgehammer. 

In an ironic wasting of resources, an all-star cast is assembled and squandered. One night a young astronomer, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), discovers a massive comet. Her mentor, Dr. Mindy(Leonardo DiCaprio), does calculations and realizes the comet is heading right for Earth and will cause an extinction level event in six months. They alert NASA’s head of Planetary Defense, Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan, in one of the film’s two standout performances), who takes them to see President Orlean (Meryl Streep), a female stand-in for Donald Trump (or any of his acolytes). Neither she nor her incompetent son and chief of staff (Jonah Hill) are concerned with the comet and decide to do nothing until they need to distract from a scandal and help with the midterm elections. The mission to blow up the comet is called off when an oddball tech-billionaire (Mark Rylance)—in full SNL host shoved into a weird character and just following direction mode—realizes the comet is full of minerals to make electronics. His plan is to send machines to mine the comet right before it hits Earth. Everything goes how you expect.

The only characters that feel like actual people are Rob Morgan as Dr. Oglethorpe and Melanie Lynskey, as Dr. Mindy’s wife—the second standout performance of the film. Overall, every part is well played. It’s no surprise that Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Mark Rylance, Melanie Lynskey, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Timothee Chalamet, and Ron Perlman do their jobs well, but you know that each performer could’ve done more.

Throughout the movie I kept asking myself: am I supposed to laugh? I am not shy about dark comedy or gallows humor but the broad jokes and intense seriousness whiplash against each other and I don’t know how the movie wants me to feel. Certain moments seemed to lampoon the manufactured sincerity of scenes from movies like Michael Bay’s Armageddon, but Don’t Look Up isn’t a disaster movie parody. Later, it uses those same techniques, sincerely this time, to make sure its gut-punch of an ending hits hard. 

Just as with Vice, McKay’s biopic of Dick Cheney revealing how Cheney was a terrible person and dangerous politician, my reaction to Don’t Look Up is: I already know. I knew it then, I know it now. I already experience persistent unrelenting existential dread about this all the time. I can’t imagine that this movie would be the straw that finally broke a climate denier’s back and made them “look up.” Everyone that already acknowledges the ever increasing and undeniable effects of climate change is in for a depressing, humorless, masochistic experience. Don’t Look Up is dull satire with stale jokes, full of repeated observations and no new insights. So why do I need this movie, especially if it is not even very funny? 

Tapping into the anxieties of the zeitgeist with extremely thinly veiled allegories and metaphors was the forte of master storyteller Rod Serling with The Twilight Zone. Even when Serling appeared at the end of an episode and directly told you the themes and moral of the story, neither he nor the episode had a hint of condescension or scorn. Many episodes were so well executed that they remain loaded with pathos. I mention this only to point out that making a razor thin allegory to affect and entertain is possible. I wish it happened more often. It does not happen in Don’t Look Up.

Nominees: Adam McKay, Kevin J. Messick, producers

Director: Adam McKay

Screenplay: Adam McKay, story by David Sirota

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep

Release Date: December 10th, 2021

Production Companies: Hyperobject Industries, Bluegrass Films

Distributor: Netflix

Total Nominations: 4, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Original Screenplay-Adam McKay, David Sirota; Editing-Hank Corwin; Original Score-Nicholas Britell

Best Pictures 74: 2021 ( 94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee: Drive My Car

by A.J. 

Best Pictures 74: 2021 ( 94th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

Drive My Car

“Those who survive keep thinking about the dead one way or another.”

Not much happens in Drive My Car, but it is not a boring film, at least not for me. The Oscar nominated screenplay by Takamasa Oe and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, who also directs, greatly expands upon the short story of the same name by Haruki Murakami, which itself is light on plot. Characters are explored deeply and quietly and there are buried emotions delivered with strong performances from a great cast. Despite the character explorations and even the incorporation of another Murakami story (Sherezade, also from the same story collection, Men Without Women), Drive My Car never really justifies its three hour runtime. 

Perhaps I would feel differently if Drive My Car had been a three part miniseries because that is how it feels. The first 40 minutes turn out to be an extended prologue introducing us to an actor and theater director, Yûsuke Kafuku played by Hidetoshi Nishijima, and his wife Oto, a screenwriter played by Reika Kirishima. Unbeknownst to Oto, Kafuku discovers she is having an affair and chooses not to confront her. One day, Oto says she has something to tell him when he comes home from work but Kafuku returns home to find that she has died suddenly. Then the opening credits start, and in many ways this is when the movie really starts.

Two years later, Kafuku is invited to Hiroshima to direct a production of Chekov’s Uncle Vanya. Due to a traffic accident caused by his impaired vision, the producers of the play insist Kafuku have a chauffeur, Misaki Watari, a laconic young woman played by Tôko Miura. Neither says much to each other about themselves or anything else at first, but the film’s length allows for their relationship to build gradually and believably. To play the title character of Uncle Vanya, Kafuku casts Kōji Takatsuki, played by Masaki Okada, the man with whom Oto was having an affair. Tensions build slowly and their confrontation happens in an unexpected and interesting way. 

I don’t necessarily begrudge Drive My Car’s three hour runtime. It allows for characters to develop and reveal themselves in a natural way which is a rare occurrence for a movie of any genre in any era. However, the many scenes of quiet driving, parking, and rehearsals, including three full audition scenes, come across as padding–which this adaptation of Murakami’s story does not need. Thanks to Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tôko Miura’s great understated performances I found myself compelled enough by Kafuku and Watari’s emotional journeys, especially their reluctance to take such journeys. Watching Drive My Car I was reminded of the films of the great Yasujirô Ozu (Tokyo Story, Late Spring, Floating Weeds) whose films focused on the emotional lives of everyday people. Ozu’s films often showed their characters simply sitting in a restaurant or at home and talking and, though they may sound boring, are all emotionally powerful experiences. 

Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, nominated for Best Director, is working in the same vein but maybe not in the same league as Ozu (but, really, who is?). Nonetheless, sparking a comparison to Ozu means he made a pretty effective film. Drive My Car did not connect with me as strongly as it has with many other viewers and Academy members. Still, I think this film is worth watching if you can find the time. 

Nominee: Teruhisa Yamamoto, producer

Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

Screenplay: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe based on the short story by Haruki Murakami

Cast: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tōko Miura, Masaki Okada, Reika Kirishima

Production Companies: C&I Entertainment, Culture Entertainment, Bitters End, et al.

Distributor: Bitters End

Release Date: November 24th, 2021

Total Nominations: 4, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Director-Ryûsuke Hamaguchi; Adapted Screenplay-Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe; International Feature Film