Drive My Car trailer announces Ryûsuke Hamaguchi road movie's entry to Oscars' race

The US trailer of director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi's road movie was recently released online. An adaptation of Haruki Murakami's story, Drive My Car, opened to an incredible positive response at this Cannes Festival 2021, and also won an award for Best Screenplay.

According to the synopsis released, the film follows a renowned stage actor and director, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), two years after his beloved wife's unexpected death when he is offered to direct a play at a theatre festival in Hiroshima. The festival organisers assign him a driver, a young woman named Misaki Watari (Toko Miura). 

As days to the performance approach, there is heightened tension between Yusuke and Koji Takatsuki (Masaki Okada), a TV actor who once knew his wife. Yusuke is forced to confront some truths about his past, and his wife but not without the help of his driver.

The synopsis says Drive My Car is "haunting road movie traveling a path of love, loss, acceptance, and peace." 

The film had also competed for Cannes' most coveted prize, the Palme D'Or, which ultimately went to Titane. 

In a conversation with The Film Stage at Cannes, Hamaguchi had spoken about his choice of casting: "When I cast actors, the most important thing for me is that the mentality of the character should match the kind of human being that this actor is. For Kafuku, for example, he’s not someone that reveals much of himself. And in the story he’s very passive—he isn’t someone who drives his own car, he’s just sitting in the car and driving to lots of places. And this passive part kind of matched Hidetoshi Nishijima, who is an actor I’d seen in a lot of independent movies, starting when I was in my twenties."