'Unforgettable': Oscar favorite 'Drive My Car' will transport your soul to a better place

Ryȗsuke Hamaguchi’s transporting “Drive My Car” arrives at the intersection of past, present and future. More importantly, it unfurls a map to a place where art and an artist’s reality merge into a fast lane of creativity. As in life, it’s all about the journey: the roads we choose and the ones not taken; embracing those along for the ride and mourning the ones left behind. It’s essentially the highway of life condensed into an unforgettable three-hour ride into the soul of an everyman.

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The vehicle is literally a car, a classic fire-engine-red Saab 900 Turbo with an all-too-symbolic dark interior. It is there that lost-and-broken actor-director Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) finds himself wallowing in his grief, using the small, mobile space as a confessional to both acknowledge and absolve himself of guilt over the sudden death of his unfaithful wife. It’s also the arena for slaying his fears and accepting the truth that love is maddeningly imperfect. It’s a trek he unexpectedly shares with a chauffeur assigned to him while he's serving as artist-in-residence for a Hiroshima theater group staging Chekhov's “Uncle Vanya.”

As in Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman,” the themes of the play mirror the inner turmoil of an artist finding his truth in the words of an iconic playwright. In this case, Yusuke's torment is reflected in Uncle Vanya’s realization that he’s squandered much of his existence attempting to please an indifferent mentor. Life is meaningless, he concludes, and Yusuke clearly is in agreement. So too, it seems, is his driver, Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), an apathetic 23-year-old hardened by a childhood lived under the rule of a tyrannical mother.

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The dictates of screenwriting foretell mutual healing. And predictability is indeed a liability in this loose adaptation by Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe of three intermingled Haruki Murakami short stories. But Hamaguchi more than compensates by eliciting heartfelt performances from Nishijima and Miura that leave you breathless. Raw and understated, both actors poignantly reflect the weariness afflicting Chekhov's characters, as they spend hours a day inside the Saab, traveling ribbons of highway, backdropped by the majestic beauty of Hiroshima.

It’s the Saab, though, that is a constant lure, almost hypnotic in its appeal. It’s both soothing and exotic, a Swedish-built car in a Far East urban paradise most famous for its utter destruction by the world’s first atomic bomb. Like the city, the driver and passenger are unwitting victims of events that have become demarcations between what was and what is. And each is haunted by the disembodied voice of Yusuke’s deceased wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima), a beautiful and inventive TV writer with a propensity for sleeping with her male stars. We hear her voice via the audiotapes Yusuke plays to master the rhythms of Chekhov's dialogue as the pair travel from place to place.

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Yusuke hears the words, but Nishijima’s pained expressions reveal there’s much more than the play at issue. It’s downright masochistic that Yusuke punishes himself by casting Oto’s last lover, Koshi (Misaki Okada), a boyishly handsome, Harry Styles-type TV star, as Uncle Vanya. No one is shocked by this left-field choice more than the hair-triggered Koshi. A young man playing an old one? Yusuke assures him it’s in keeping with his directing style, employing multilingualism – including an actress (Yoo-rim Park) using sign language – with casting choices that challenge his actors to exceed their comfort zones and draw from on deep within. But it’s obvious there’s more to this unusual choice.

It culminates in a gripping third act in which Yusuke and Misaki find clemency in shared grief. But not before Okada and Nishijima bring the house down with the best backseat soliloquy since Brando and Steiger in “On the Waterfront.” It begins with Yusuke revealing how he and Oto overcame the loss of their child by plotting screenplays during sex and writing down their ideas the following day. Yusuke perceives this as his one unique link to Oto. But not so fast. Koshi shatters that belief by completing a story Yusuke believed only he and Oto shared – a parable about an amorous teenage girl and the man she kills in self-defense.

What’s remarkable about the scene is how it stands as a metaphor for what the West inflicted on the East with the A-bomb. It was self-defense, but it also came without blame or remorse. The scene shakes you as it encapsulates the movie’s message that inner peace is possible only when you accept responsibility for your actions and forgive the misdeeds of others.

The revelation may sound obvious, but it leaves a lump in your throat. It’s what Hamaguchi has been driving toward all along, and it’s all you can do to restrain your emotions, as you're dropped off at a better place than where you began.

'DRIVE MY CAR'

Not rated: Sexual situations, adult themes, smoking

Directed by: Ryȗsuke Hamaguchi

Written by: Ryȗsuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe

Cast: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Toko Miura and Reika Kirishima.

Grade: A

Running time: 2:59 (In Japanese with English subtitles)

Where to watch: Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline; Cape Cinema, Dennis; Somerville Theatre, Jan. 24.

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Ryusuke Hamaguchi Oscar favorite Drive my car is an unforgettable ride