This is the one people are hoping will be this year's Parasite. I think it's definitely the frontrunner for International Feature and probably going to get Adapted Screenplay.Recently widowed Kufuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima) accepts a theater workshop in Hiroshima. When he arrives, he is told that due to liability issues he is not allowed to drive himself, but really it's because they found out he has glaucoma. The theater offers him a driver, Watari (Tôko Miura). Initially reluctant, Kufuku agrees to let Watari drive his car. Compounding issues, his dead wife's (Reika Kirishima) most recent lover, Takashi (Toshiaki Inomata), is auditioning for the same play Kufuku is directing, a production of Chekov's Uncle Vanya.
This has a lot of passive aggressive politeness, which I understand to be quintessentially Japanese. Kufuku and Watari are both trying to process their complicated feelings about grief and the inherent dichotomies in loving someone and trying to know them. Does that sound like something you want to spend three hours exploring? If so, hooray! It's currently streaming on HBO Max. If not, no worries. There are tons of other international features to try.
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