Drive

It reviews better than it plays — admired more than it is enjoyed.

• “Where once Hamaguchi’s film-making language had seemed to me at the level of jeu d’esprit, now it ascends to something with passion and even a kind of grandeur.”

  Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian · 100

• “Nearly every scene of this richly novelistic movie — which won the festival’s screenplay prize — teems with ideas about grief and betrayal, the nature of acting, the possibility (and impossibility) of catharsis through art, and the simple bliss of watching lights and landscapes fly past your car window.”

  Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times · 100

• “Hamaguchi has made a profoundly beautiful film about making peace with the role in front of you, and playing it with all your might.”

  Robbie Collin, The Telegraph · 100

• “Drive My Car is not most films, its story told in minute, passing details that cannot help but grip the attention to the point that the emotional tension and catharsis feel so effortless that hours seem to pass in an instant. That very little happens in the way of narrative action speaks to how brilliantly Hamaguchi harnesses the emotions of his characters into compelling drama.”

  Christopher Machell, CineVue · 100

• “Hamaguchi’s touch — delicate, precise, restrained, gentle — overwhelms in increments. His reserve is essential to his visual and narrative approach but also feels like a worldview.”

  Manohla Dargis, The New York Times · 100