Drive My Car is a dense and meditatively paced three-hour piece of storytelling that centres on the grief and regret of stage performer-director Yusuke Kafuku.

Seasoned Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi takes the Haruki Murakami short story of the same name, meshes elements from a number of the Men Without Women shorts collection and gives it its own identity entirely.

It opens with a powerful 40-minute prologue detailing the complexities of the ultimately tragic relationship between Yusuke and his wife. When the film moves into its next phase, Yusuke is given an appointed driver, Misaki, to take him to and from work. It’s during these rides that the film is at its most melancholic as poignant monologues are met with the monotonous hum of the moving car, and the beauty of Hamaguchi’s filmmaking really sinks in.

While you do feel every bit of that three-hour runtime, the languid journey feels necessary to allow for the pain of these characters to reverberate. This is reminiscent of the last time a Murakami short story was converted to the big screen in Lee Chang-dong’s Burning. Clearly Murakami’s work is well suited as a frame work for cinematic telling and Drive My Car is testament to that.