​Grossly speaking, “Drive my Car”plays out in three acts - that work almost like three layers that take us deeper and deeper into the aforementioned ever-after. Each part is roughly an hour long, with the opening credits placed firmly at the end of the first one. It unfolds like a play, and in fact, is about a play that is used somewhat as a MacGuffin. The first act thoroughly layers in the complicated yet loving relationship between successful actor/playwright Yusuke Kafuku and his actress wife, Oto Kafuku. An unforeseen tragedy leads Yusuke across the country, tasked with directing a play that could be his magnum opus. But this also holds core challenges - he can’t bring himself to play the lead role.

Diffusing from the first act into the second, we see Yusuke’s commitment to his car and his art, how one becomes a conduit to the other, and how both become windows through which he chooses to see the world and the questions he has for it. The third act then absorbs Yusuke through these windows, asking him to surmount the very predicament he is escaping from. Along this path, Yusuke meets a smattering of characters, all in different states of hope and despair, as is often the case with life. The most significant of these is Misaki Watari, employed by the theater to drive Yusuke around. Misaki is stoic on the surface but has traumas from her own past, juxtaposing her interestingly next to Yusuke.
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​In “Drive My Car”, Hamaguchi inconspicuously builds a narrative that is a focused and humbling rumination on how people, their vocations and avocations, and the environment - even the titular car - all become mere artifacts to fill their lives and its emptiness with. As expertly rendered as it is, the filmmaking prowess is far from the argument for this movie - it is a definite and decent effort to understand what it means to be have human consciousness and interact with everything around us. When the world exposes the fragility of the facades and purports we build for ourselves, how do we make sense of what we had, and where do we go next?
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“Drive My Car” is now streaming on HBO Max.

There are a lot of pauses in the dialogue in this film. Not just the dialogue, even the acting is peppered with considered pauses. It is by no means a narrative inefficiency though - it is a deliberate feature. “Still of the Night” is a slow burner with precisely measured performances from Meryl Streep and Roy Scheider. These pauses they take characterize their roles with fear and desire. This direction is perfect, for when the movie begins, we meet Scheider’s Sam and Streep’s Brooke at times of their lives that are riddled with insecurities. A recently divorced Sam finds out one of his psychiatric patients has been murdered, who happens to be Brooke’s lover (who naturally becomes a prime suspect).

Strange as it may, this tense movie had a calming effect on me, owing to its slower, deliberate narrative. Most modern potboilers or whodunits have a ratcheted up pace - a plot peppered with twists, quick cut edits, overdone stylization, the works. “Still of the Night” chooses to beat a different drum. In a very 80s sense, the movie is slow and focused, giving each scene its due time and weightage. It almost plays out like a horror film, where you see one of the actors descend slowly into a seductive stupor fueled by infatuation for the other - which could only end badly. Yes, it even employs some cheap thrills and jump scares, but they are few and far apart and accompany artistic strokes. The only thing missing from the movie is a jarring score reminiscent of “Eyes Wide Shut”.
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​Streep plays a stunning damsel in distress, tentative on the surface but with a determined air of vice and fatality that pops out vividly in the film’s careful voyeurism. Schneider’s Sam is effective as a helpless romantic, slowly getting sucked into the obvious charm and the subterranean melancholy of his predicament.

The best way to experience the delicate craft of this movie is through an auction scene that happens in the second half. Brooke is an art dealer at a gallery, in the midst of a heated auction, working aggressively with clients on the phone to place bids. The cops may be convinced that she is the culprit and are there to get her. Sam wants to alert her, help her escape, but is stuck in the auction on the last row - polite enough to not disrupt the show’s proceedings, scared enough to not expose himself to the cops, yet desperate enough to catch her attention. In this twist, he starts placing bids on an item he doesn’t even care about. The scene plays out long, slowly building up the tension. No extravagant disruptions here - just a tightly drawn long string of moments that keep us sweating at the brow. This is a mark of great screenwriting and film making, of artists being confident in their setup and delivery, and not resorting to post-production antics like flashy editing or a thunderous score.
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​Maybe that explains the movie’s relative lack of background score. The stillness in sound, in movement, and the anticipation of the blow around the corner - that irresistible wait, that is the real draw. As proclaimed in its title, this movie is all about stillness, and the horrors that lurk beyond it.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

The scene that sums up the tone and intent of this movie for me involves a lot of helium-filled balloons, a luminous Julia Roberts, and three teenagers singing John Denver's "A Song for Annie" in that kind of funny voice that happens when one inhales helium. It is equal parts silly and wholesome, and uses that tone to glide us along a pivotal plot point in the movie.
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There are two friendships and two love stories at the heart of this movie, all fused together into a heady potpourri the way only life ends up doing. Julia Roberts plays Julianne, a lonely and scattered New Yorker who gets a surprise call from her best friend (and past lover), Michael (Dermot Mulroney, charming yet a tad bit unconvincing). Michael's getting married that weekend and wants Julianne to be her best "man" while also playing bridesmaid to his bride Kimmy (Cameron Diaz playing a naive, yet kindred woman effectively). This comes as an emotional gut punch to Julianne, who realizes that she has been in love with Michael, ever since they broke up several years ago and remained best friends. In farcical urgency, she decides she needs to go to the wedding, only to confess her love to Michael, breaking his wedding up in hopes of her happily ever after. Her only confidante and guide in this misadventure, for all things right and wrong, is pal George (an affable Rupert Everett).

​This absurd setting, mixed in with the possibility of true romance, is balanced by the movie quite well - presenting a narrative that never takes itself too seriously yet never pauses to explore the simple beauties that adorn life. Ronald Bass' writing doesn't pander too much and director P.J. Hogan trusts the audience enough to drop us into the rich milieu of every scene. There is so much to bite into in terms of atmosphere. To keep the viewer from being distracted, the camera does a commendable job of focusing on the one person that matters - more often than not, the radiant Julia Roberts. Roberts is spot on as the tentative Julianne, stuck in crossroads where desired actions could have damaging consequences.

I'm usually not in a rush to watch movies as soon as they come out or hit my radar. I tend to "save" movies only to savor them at the right moment, which is why you see a terrible sense of chronology when it comes to posts on this site. On those lines, "My Best Friend's Wedding" fit perfectly into uplifting the mood of a gloomy December night in Ohio - reminding me of sunny summers, love, and beautiful friendships.
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Now Streaming on HBO Max.