I loved this movie on so many levels. One of the things that I really enjoy about watching movies made in other countries is that there is such a different approach when it comes to how a story is told. For example, in this movie you aren't even necessarily sure what the main conflict is. It isn't assumed that the male lead and the female lead are going to be romantically linked. There isn't a music bed to tell us when something dramatic is happening. With this movie I just fell into a nice groove with it and let it take me away for three hours. I swear that the movie felt shorter than many of the ninety minute movies that I've seen recently.

Of course, this means that the movie isn't for everyone. The acting is fantastic but the pacing is.... deliberate? I laughed out loud when the opening credits started rolling forty minutes into the movie. It's been twenty four hours since I watched it and I am still pondering the central themes of the movie. I've seen some people say that they didn't like the movie because they believed the central theme to be grief. It may have been for some of the movie but clearly not for all of it. Also, the movie is beautiful to look at and it provides an excellent backdrop to ponder what is happening in the film.

Anyway, I would easily put this up with Licorice Pizza and Coda as the best movies of 2021.

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The way the movie elaborates human feelings is authentic...but is it ideal for a movie? The main character doesn't know how to feel about what happened untill the end of the movie.."I understand now" he says, talking about his life and the relationship with his wife. The young actor says he felt like empty before meeting Oto. The actors need to read the script endlessly before it starts flowing through them and still it is something that happens just for them, a short connection (the scene of the two actresses playing in the park), while the others (and ourselves as spectators) can only guess what happened. We are so used to see instant reactions to serious problems by characters who know who they are and how they're suppose to feel that they never doubt it because it is much more cinematic this way. This movie is about how hard is to recognize and even name what stirs within our hearts, and when we finally get it, it is often too late, just as for uncle Vania who wasted the best years of his life. We need time to get there, that's why the rhythm is so slow. Cinematic? Not really. Still so real.

What an incredible, incredible movie.
I'll need some time to properly digest it and I think it deserves at least a 2nd vision to notice other details, words, glances and gestures because so much is said without using spoken words.

It is a stunning journey through grief and growth, with a very peculiar (for us Westerners at least, I feel) pace: slow, for sure, but also contemplative. It felt like being able to embark on the journey with the characters, thanks to their willingness to listen; I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, but in a U.S. movie I would have expected rage, emotions bursting, maybe crying - which for me if not done properly, disrupt the rhythm of the tale and sort of wake you up from your identifying with the people on screen. Here I felt characters internalized, reflected on the moments that shaked their core, allowing us to reflect with them.
Furthermore, the fact that little actually happens, allows to take the proper time to hear the characters, let them explain themselves slowly and not always with words - which I found a superb way to depict a human in a multifaceted way.

There are at least a couple of scenes I found remarkable: the dinner, the 3 people journey in the car and the (almost) final scene where sign language conveys emotion and the meaning of the moment in a better way than any speech.

"Kafuku" (Hidetoshi Nishijima) is an accomplished stage actor who is directing a performance of Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" with a group of young actors. He arrives at the venue in his red Saab motor car, determined that only he will drive himself. That's not the policy of the theatre, though, and soon he is placed in the capable hands of the somewhat laconic "Misaki" (Tôko Miura) and as the two start to get used to one and other, and he starts to get to know his new cast, the story unfolds revealing his past - his marriage to a famous playwright that ended in tragedy, and of his driver's own demons as the pair - entirely platonically - begin to fill the gaps left in each other's lives by times gone by. I did quite enjoy this, there are quite a few quirks to the story, not least from the handsome and curiously enigmatic 'Kôji" (Masaki Okada) whose storyline intertwines intriguingly with that of his mentor, and the film adopts a pace of it's own which you will appreciate right from the start (or not!). The dialogue is sparse though, perhaps a little too much so at times, and at almost three hours long it can feel like a bit of a slog at times. Director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi has possibly over indulged himself a little with the style of the film, it dawdles, cinematographically speaking, and I suppose at the title suggests, there are quite a few scenes suggesting that more of a road trip movie might be in order. It is still a very easy film to watch, it requires concentration and somehow the fact that it's that Chekhov play seems apposite, too. I would see it on a big screen if you can - I suspect on television even the most focussed of us might find our attention wandering after a while.

I find this film to be a near perfect drama. I understand that most Americans and perhaps younger viewers everywhere will not appreciate the pacing of the movie. There are two things about this movie that make it an actor's movie.

First is the play within the play: the play within is Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, and, like most Russian classics, it's about the human condition and the response to suffering. It's the play within the play because the film slowly reveals a mirror of Chekhov's play itself.

Second, some playwrights have the gift of writing dialog that leaves the real storytelling to the unspoken dialogue - Shakespeare, Pinter, Stoppard - they all had this gift, and I nominate Hamaguchi to this list. It is amazing to watch this kind of production because it only survives with the richness and depth of the acting. It is the sole reason that theater companies can do these kind of plays and each version is completely unique. Even if you are not aware of this aspect of a play, Lee Yoo-na (Park Yu-rim) pointed out that her silence allowed her to see the deeper dialogue more clearly.

As to the pacing? It's a brilliant reflection of the way Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) was directing Uncle Vanya.