While I know the lead character in “Drive My Car” would not approve of car snacks, that is immediately where my mind went while thinking of a pairing for this movie.

It occurred to me that the contained nature of the trending snackle boxes might be a good compromise.

Like my charcuterie board post, this recipe follows a choose-your-own-adventure format, so you can easily adjust it to your dietary preferences. My snackle box is completely vegan and gluten-free.

Ingredients
whatever pantry snacks you enjoy
a tackle box, bento box, craft organizer or similar container with separated sections

Instructions
For obvious reasons, I don’t have a tackle box in my house, so I’ve used the closest thing I could find: the tea bag organizer I got for my husband. I would encourage you to be equally resourceful.

I chose most of my snacks based on the idea that they’d be OK to eat while on a road trip, but the full intention behind this “recipe” of sorts is that you have enough snacks to hold you over while you sit on the couch to watch a three-hour movie.

Honestly, you can pick whatever snacks you want, but much like my charcuterie board tips and tricks from a couple years ago, I recommend a mix of sweet and savory, soft and crunchy, etc.

For my box, I chose some crunchy mushroom and sage snacks, vegan snack cheese, gluten-free rosemary crackers, plant-based jerky, sambar masala peanuts, chili dried mango slices, a banana chocolate date bar and crispy coated chocolate candy.

My box was enough to easily get me through lunch and an afternoon snack. You can fill yours higher if you want to share or make it last longer.

Enjoy your snackle spread while you watch “Drive My Car!”

The Easy Route
Most of my snacks were premade, so this was pretty dang easy for me.

Snack boxes being shipped to your door are becoming more and more popular, but I haven’t seen any of those companies specifically jump on delivering snackle boxes. If you know of such a business, please share those details in the comments.

The Pairing
“Drive My Car” is a masterpiece, one of my favorite films of the decade (so far).

I watched it for the first time while I was launching Veg Out, and I knew I would eventually write about it here. I will say it’s a little on the darker side compared to many of the movies I have written about here, so if that isn’t your thing, maybe just make the snackle box and go for a drive.

The movie centers on Yūsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), an actor and theater director who is dealing with an intense amount of grief in his personal life.

Much of the film revolves on his production of “Uncle Vanya,” which sees him temporarily relocating from Tokyo to Hiroshima, taking his beloved car along for the ride.

Nishijima is absolutely outstanding, which is necessary since some of the film’s best scenes rely on his face and delivery.

The script is fantastic as well. The device of having Yūsuke listen to tapes of dialogue from “Uncle Vanya” in his car coincide with the drama of the film’s plot is genius and makes the film’s three-hour running time go by a bit faster.

Tôko Miura is also wonderful as Misaki Watari, the driver the “Uncle Vanya” production hires to cart Yūsuke around.

Jin Dae-yeon plays a small but memorable role as Kon Yoon-su, a translator for the theater.

As I mentioned before, “Drive My Car” definitely involves investment of time and emotional energy, but it is well worth both.

If you decide to assemble a snackle box and/or watch “Drive My Car,” let us know! Tag us in your Instagram posts & stories, threads, tweets or TikTok videos: @veg_out_recipes