National Society of Film Critics picks "Drive My Car"
Saturday, January 8, 2022 at 8:42PM by Nathaniel R
The National Society of Film Critics, founded in 1966, is one of the three most prestigious critics group in the US, alongside NYFCC and LAFCA (and sharing some members from each). The society works with the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress as well as providing the American delegate to FIPRESCI, the international federation of members of the film press. This year, of their nine regular awards, only two (Cinematography and Supporting Actress) went to English language films which is we suspect record international dominance (77%) even though the group has always liked international films. Here are their awards this year...
Picture Drive My Car
(When a foreign-language film wins their top prize they do not award the parallel foreign-language film prize)
Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Drive My Car
Actress Penélope Cruz, Parallel Mothers
Actor Hidetoshi Nishijima, Drive My Car
Supporting Actress Ruth Negga, Passing
Supporting Actor Anders Danielsen Lie, The Worst Person in the World
Screenplay Drive My Car
Non-Fiction Film Flee
Cinematography The Green Knight
Special Citation for Film Awaiting Distribution: Jean-Gabriel Périot's documentary Returning to Reims
Film Heritage Award: Maya Cade for the Black Film Archive, Bernard Tavernier, and Peter Bogdanovich
Reader Comments (21)
House of NSFC is the house where I belong
I keep saying Drive My Car is getting a best picture nod. This is another step.
So excited about Penelope Cruz!!!!!!!!!!
Once again, NSFC proves the classiest of class acts.
Haven't seen Drive My Car. Looks way to cerebral for the Academy, Could be the new Toni Erdmann/The Square.
I was doubting Drive My Car’s Oscar chances outside of International Feature and maybe Adapted Screenplay for a while, but it’s just getting SO much attention from critics awards that I have to believe it’s officially at least on voters’ radar at this point, meaning many of them will watch it before submitting their ballots. And that’s often the biggest obstacle that international movies face with the Academy: they simply struggle to make it onto enough voters’ watchlist in time. But if you’re a person who follows movie awards at all — which I assume most (though unfortunately not all) Oscar voters do — you are undoubtedly aware of Drive My Car by now. So assuming it’s caught voters’ attention, I believe it could easily get in for Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay on top of its absolutely certain International Feature nomination (where it will most likely win).
I think we are entering a new era for the Academy where international films have a much easier time making a big impact, which hasn’t really been the case regularly since the ‘70s. Parasite’s Best Picture win two years ago may not have been just an isolated incident, and I’m here for it.
Objectively this year the most interesting candies are non US.
I'm so blindly loyal to Kirsten Dunst (and the project of making her an Oscar winner) that seeing anyone but her on these lists triggers me. No offense to her fellow competitors.
All the truly STUPID sweeps and coronations we've sat through over the years, and we can't marshall a *bit* of respect for Kiki when she makes it so easy?
Ruth Negga gave the best supporting performance of ‘21. Sorry Kiki stans but your girl wasn’t good enough. She’s gonna have to settle for a nomination as merely her prize.
Out of the three main critics groups, this one turned out to be the best. Besides Flee winning, all the other choices are terrific.
With the more international membership which in recent years has nominated Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin actors, directors, and writers, Drive My Car has supporters. Does it have enough (the 12%) #1-3 votes given Janus is not Neon, SPC, or Filmnation? And which film does it replace? In a more meritocratic election, I think it would be Top 5. However, the Oscars are commercial-oriented making Drive My Car unlikely as their taste differs a lot from critics.
Lenard -- i agree with you. I can't think of anything like DRIVE MY CAR that's ever been nominated. It doesn't have a distributor that Oscar has a relationship with. It is very cerebral. It's 3 hours long (well the length might not be a problem for them as they like long movies)
Edwin -- but don't you think it's too cerebral for Oscar? The closest thing i can think of is AMOUR. and that was from Michael Haneke who'd they'd embraced previously backed by a distirbutor they totally love. Hamaguchi is totally new to them.
Guy -- this is the first i've heard of somebody not liking FLEE!
DK -- haha. while it is true that there have been many stupid sweeps over the years, it's always been so random as to when people can achieve that and when not.
@DK and Guy-Kiki plays a classical role, seen and reseen, but she plays it perfectly, making her Rose very personal.
Negga for me is strongest because she has a difficult character and she plays it like is the easiest thing in the world. You don't see the acting, you don't see any effort. Dunst had "easiest" chords to play. Most of them we knew she was good at playing them.
But the whole thing about Drive My Car is that, in spite of being a very demanding film, its long and delicate build-up pays off in a very emotional way. That last hour is just devastating.
The movie EARNS its running. When you all say it's a cerebral movie, you make it sound like it's Kubrick-ish. It's not. People cry seeing it. I could not hold back my tears when you finally see the play and how it informs the characters' arcs. It's beautifully set-up, and it's heartwarming.
Cal -- everytime i read these passionate takes on the movie i feel so jealous. I just did not have that response. I thought it was very cerebral (and effective in that way). i didnt feel anything close to tears but again, so happy the movie has been so moving for others.
I think it's a bit of both. It's a film that does ask a lot of its audience, but whoever is willing to give the film what it asks gets an emotional experience. I remember I was having trouble with the beginning of the movie and I did wonder at one point if the film should have started at a specific point a little over the 40-minute mark (if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about), but the film becomes so much more rewarding because of everything we've been through with Kafuku and all the conversations that reveal how these characters conceal emotions and their journey toward letting go.
And if you think the near 3-hour running time is a lot, I watched Hamaguchi's 2015 film Happy Hour (it was playing at a film festival I was working for at the time), that film is a whopping 5 hours and 17 minutes long, and earns every second of that running time. So, the man is showing restraint here...
Does anyone know if a film has been named Best Picture by the NYFCC, LAFCA and NSFC and not gotten a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars before?
Richter Scale --i think this is a little judgmental
I definitely gave the film the full attention. Went to see it in a theater ( where I am never distracted as I am sometimes with screeners on a laptop... the worst way to watch movies) and I never took a bathroom break and I thought it was an interesting movie and i am familiar with Uncle Vanya... but I only felt it intellectually.Cruz is almost a lock at this point. The battle for the fifth slot will be intense : Zegler, Kidman, Gaga, Thompson, Hudson, Jones, and Comer are all in play. My prediction right now is Emilia Jones joining Chastain, Colman, Cruz, and Stewart.
Richter Scale -- great questions i looked it up. No film that's won all three has missed a Best Picture nomination (to date). But there isn't a lot of times when that has happened and it's never happened with a foreign language filmm before AND in all of these previous cases the film was heading to a best picture nomination even before the critics awarded it. so this could be the exception or it could prove the rule.
These were the only cases
(the first year where all three groups existed was 1975)
1990 - goodfellas
1993 - schindlers list
1997 - LA Confidential
2009 - Hurt Locker
2010 - Social Network
2021 - Drive My Car
@Nathaniel R
Have you lost any close person to Covid?
I have a theory about why this movie is so resonating with some of us. It's the first movie to deal eloquently with grief and mourning in this pandemic era.
The three main characters have lost a close person without being able to tell them things that needed to be said. And then they have to live with this unsaid words for years.
Japanese directors have always been very good with the subject of mourning, be it in a humanist way (think Hirokazu Koreeda), be it making horror movies (from Ugetsu and Kwaidan to their pop modern movies).
Of course the Japanese would be the ones to ellaborate on this common sense of grief a great part of humanity feels right now. The final sequence when we see the driver masked was not there for no reason.
And the way movie uses ART as a way of healing (but not a way to escape) is just beyond words. It's intellectual, yes, but it needed that running time.
(Have you seen Asako I & II? Now we realize that it was already a take on how impossible is to let go the people we love)
cal roth -- i have not lost anyone to COVID, no, but i've lost very close loved ones for other reasons unexpectedly (all in a ten year stretch from the early 1990s to early 2000s weirdly) so maybe you're on to something about COVID grief and the response to this movie ... if not grief in general.
I, too, have been feeling DRIVE MY CAR for a Best Picture nod, for some time now. On paper, it shouldn't have a chance - the 3 hour run time, the fact that it's Japanese and the director and actors aren't as widely known, etc. But the people who love it really love it, so I could see it getting enough #1 passion votes to get in.
Wholly concur with cal roth on the way it uses art as healing - it is intellectual AND emotional, which is a rare feat. I myself was rapt for pretty much the entire time (three hours? what three hours?) and weeping like a baby by the end.
Of course, in my case it helps that Uncle Vanya is one of my favorite plays and hits home every time I've seen it. I've never seen a movie that wasn't a straight-up adaptation capture its essence so beautifully.