Winner for Best Screenplay at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, writer-director Ryūsuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car is a collision between the artistic process and the human experience. In the wake of his wife’s sudden death, stage actor-director Yūsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) takes on the directing gig of Uncle Vanya at a regional theater festival, and finds his solitude broken by a contractual obligation to hire a chauffeur, the similarly haunted Misaki (Tōko Miura). As the tense rehearsals proceed, and Yūsuke is drawn closer to his miscast leading actor Kōji (Masaki Okada), Yūsuke comes to terms with what was left unknown in his marriage. A patient but dynamically built drama of cumulative power, Drive My Car captivates with its observational, sometimes darkly funny approach to grief and the artist’s journey. Deceptively understated but with a seismic impact, here is the film that affirms Hamaguchi as one of the most sharply observant and humane directors working today.