Despite the box-office success of Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2018 Palme d’Or winner, “Shoplifters,” there’s a lingering perception in Japan that Cannes is a playground for filmmakers to indulge the tastes of Champagne-quaffing cinephiles without any care for audiences back home.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car,” which won the best screenplay award at this year’s festival, seems unlikely to change that view. This slow-burning three-hour drama is the kind of film that critics adore, but despite earning stellar reviews, it seems unlikely to capture the public’s imagination like “Shoplifters” did.
The closest Hamaguchi comes to a commercial concession is in his choice of source material: a short story by Haruki Murakami, featured in the author’s 2014 collection, “Men Without Women.” Far from a straight adaptation, Hamaguchi and co-screenwriter Takamasa Oe use the story as the starting point for a meta-drama that gets more interesting the further it drifts from the original.