Rental Family ★★★

Phillip Vandarploeug (Brendan Fraser) is struggling. An American living in Japan, Phillip is an outsider. He is lonely, spending his evenings looking out his apartment window to see a variety of locals living their ordinary lives in the apartment building across the street. Professionally, he is an actor who had a successful role in a cheesy toothpaste commercial, but none of his work is really paying the bills. He works these small roles while holding out hope that, perhaps, his big break will be coming soon. One day, Phillip gets a call asking him to play the part of a “sad American,” but the part will need him on set right away. Hurrying out the door, he has no idea that he is about to walk into a staged funeral, introducing him to the world of a “rental family” organization. Director Hikari’s Rental Family is a sweet, heartwarming, and funny look at the unconventional ways that people can find warmth, love, friendship, and even family in a world that always threatens to swallow them up.

As Shinji (Takehiro Hira), the owner of the rental family agency that employs Phillip, explains, the company “plays roles in people’s lives.” They are whatever they need them to be. In the case of the funeral, it was a young man who felt that nobody noticed or cared about him, so they staged his funeral to enable him to hear the love those around him have for him. Shinji is careful to stress that this funeral is not fake, as it was very real and important to the client. Though Phillip is hesitant at first to take on more jobs with the company, feeling that this is all kind of twisted, he will eventually sign on to partake in a wedding as white Canadian “Brian”. The client is a lesbian woman who needs this staged wedding in order to satiate her parents desire for her to marry a man and to give her the freedom to live her life how and with whom she chooses away from her family. Phillip again has reservations and nearly walks, but seeing the end result, the happiness of the client and her real partner, changes him and enables him to see the value of this company. 

From there, Phillip takes on many roles. He plays video games with a lonely man. He and Shinji go to a club to cheer on the dancers. The daughter of famed actor Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto) hires him as journalist “John Conway” to interview her father, who is struggling with memory loss and loneliness, while also being convinced nobody remembers him. However, none will be as demanding as the role he gets as a father. Hired by a single mother who wants to get her daughter Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman) into an exclusive school but needs to present a traditional two parent household to appeal to the conservative and restrictive school bureaucracy, Phillip soon strikes a genuine bond with Mia. Part of the job is also convincing Mia that Phillip is her father “Kevin”, as Mia’s mother Hitomi (Shino Shinozaki) believes that, to be truly convincing for the school, even Mia needs to believe Kevin is her father. The problem is, not only does Mia believe it but Phillip even begins to form a fatherly attachment to her, whether it is hanging out with her at a local cat festival, answering her calls when she just needs to talk, or advocating for her to the school board with the passion and urgency of a real parent. It is not long before Hitomi decides that, once the meeting with the school is done, Philip’s job is done and they need to break Mia’s heart all over again. Shinji warned Phillip this is part of the job, that they cannot get too attached and must always listen to client’s wishes, but the job is so personal and feels so real that it is nearly impossible to not want more than is afforded by their limited scope.

Rental family agencies are a real thing in Japan, rationalized by Shinji as existing due to the stigmatization of mental health and therapists. They enable people to feel connections and emotions not available to them in their otherwise isolated lives. They “sell emotion.” However, none of that emotion is fake. They are real not only to the clients, but to the actors. When Phillip’s co-worker Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) works an apology service job as a woman apologizing to an adulterous man’s wife for their affair and is slapped across the face, the pain is real and the resultant bruise is real. It is a physical manifestation of the genuine impact that this job has on their lives, whether it is enabling them to find friendship – in one of the film’s biggest scenes, he even affords the aging Kikuo a trip (forbidden by Kikuo’s daughter) back to Kikuo’s long-off childhood home because the man wanted to go – or even something deeper, like a familial connection to their clients. Rental Family sometimes overplots itself – especially as it tries to deal with the repercussions of that trip with Kikuo or as it forces Phillip and Mia apart – to add some tension to the picture, but when it is simply watching Phillip experience life and form bonds with people, it is incredibly pleasant. It is also quite poignant, showing him as a man who needs this as much as his clients do with this being both the most rewarding role of his life and one that opens doors for him that he never thought possible. He may never, as he is told, understand Japan but he is no longer lonely and isolated in Japan.

Brendan Fraser is perfect for this role. He is so soft and gentle in his delivery and so genuine and affecting in his expression of emotion that one is easily swept away by his charm. He is so naturally funny and appealing. Rental Family relies heavily on situational humor and Fraser is perfect for this, whether his reactions or sharp comedic deliveries with all of this bolstering its already light and emotional journey into the ties that bind us all. Akira Emoto steals the scenes he is in as Kikuo, capturing this cantankerous old man who simply wants to go back home one more time while he remembers things. The scene of him digging up a lost treasure and being taken away by the sights he finds is genuinely breathtaking, every ounce of emotion sold so deeply by Emoto. The chemistry he and Fraser share is crucial to their scenes working, as is the chemistry between Fraser and Shannon Mahina Gorman. Fraser’s light touch with Gorman feels so kind and warm, while Gorman’s energy, heart, and spirit make Mia really spark and her scenes with Fraser brim with this authenticity. Takehiro Hira and Mari Yamamoto, too, impress with both having a very insular and expressive nature, especially as Rental Family deals with heavier emotions that both handle with grace and great subtlety. They show an adeptness with comedy as well, especially during an awkward encounter at a client’s home that is so funny due to the looks on their faces.

Rental Family is perhaps nothing particularly original, but it is a heartwarming and deeply touching story about human connection. In an increasingly isolated and distant world, finding people one cannot connect with is vital and Rental Family shows a unique and unconventional way for those ties to come into a person’s life. With a great ensemble cast, a very human and funny script, and plenty of heart, Rental Family is a joy.