Plot

A renowned stage actor and director learns to cope with a big personal loss when he receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima.

Two years after his wife's unexpected death, Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director, receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There, he meets Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), a taciturn young woman assigned by the festival to chauffeur him in his beloved red Saab 900. As the production's premiere approaches, tensions mount amongst the cast and crew, not least between Yusuke and Koshi Takatsuki, a handsome TV star who shares an unwelcome connection to Yusuke's late wife. Forced to confront painful truths raised from his past, Yusuke begins - with the help of his driver - to face the haunting mysteries his wife left behind.

Having withdrawn from life, following a series of tragedies that scarred him for life, grief-stricken Tokyo-based stage actor and theatre director Yusuke accepts an invitation to direct an experimental multilingual production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya. But there's a catch. For the sake of safety, innovative Yusuke must agree to have a chauffeur and part with his shrine of solitude and freedom: his beloved, cherry red 1987 Saab 900 Turbo. Now, against the backdrop of deep-seated sadness, shallow infidelities, long rehearsals, and Hiroshima's seductive roads, a tentative friendship between Yusuke and his introverted young driver Misaki begins to form, sharing the same regret for the past and life's missed opportunities. And little by little, the confined space of the car becomes a temple of isolation, haunted by the tape recordings of Yusuke's screenwriter wife, Oto. Can the path of loss and loneliness lead to enlightenment and catharsis?—Nick Riganas