THE STORY – An American actor in Tokyo struggling to find purpose lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. He rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the beauty of human connection.
THE CAST – Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, and Akira Emoto
THE TEAM – Hikari (Director/Writer) & Stephen Blahut (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 110 Minutes
In the words of Brendan Fraser at the Toronto International Film Festival world premiere of “Rental Family,” this film is a love letter to Tokyo, signed and sealed with a cherry blossom kiss. Directed, produced, and co-written by Japanese filmmaker Hikari, “Rental Family” brings the audience on a refreshing journey about chosen families and embraces sentimentality at every turn. For the cynical, it can be an emotionally challenging watch. The film — about a Japanese agency that hires actors as stand-ins for personal situations — lets sincerity guide the way. It’s precisely what makes the film so impactful, especially in a world where empathy is severely lacking. “Rental Family” shines as a love letter not just to the nature and culture of Tokyo, but also the people there, who collectively face extreme stigma around mental health and therapy. Hikari’s film speaks lovingly to the significance of genuine human connection.
Phillip Vandarploeug (Fraser) is a struggling American actor living in Tokyo. Since appearing in a big toothpaste commercial, he has not booked any major gigs outside of the odd costume role. At the beginning of the film, he’s dressed as a tree, which sums up the current state of his career. When his agent calls one day and offers him a vague job in which he’d play a sad American, he accepts the role without question. Once Phillip arrives on location, set at a funeral where the deceased is actually alive, he discovers he’s been hired by a Rental Family agency to provide a “specialized performance.” The job involves role-playing to help people connect in their personal lives — this orchestrated funeral, for instance, helped the “deceased” feel more alive than ever. Phillip’s performance inspires the agency’s owner, Shinji (Takehiro Hira), to offer him a permanent job. Plus, the company needs a token white guy.
The concept of “Rental Family” helps engage with universal themes of loneliness and personal freedom in a highly creative manner. For starters, Phillip’s first day on the job involves him portraying the husband-to-be of a much younger woman, who plays along in front of her family so that she can secretly marry her female partner. Phillip is in the business of selling emotion to make people happy, and since it’s viewed as a job, the agency adopts the mentality of simply moving on to the next one when the time comes. But the business model is not built for just how real these connections can actually become for the people who make them. Phillip genuinely wants to help, and as such, he runs into his toughest emotional assignment yet: making an 11-year-old girl, Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), believe that he is her real father.
Brendan Fraser is a performer who wears his emotions on his sleeve. He commits the exact energy and physicality a role needs, whether goofy and charming or commanding and vulnerable. As Phillip, Fraser wholeheartedly embraces sincerity and tenderness. He gives the audience generous glimpses into how this character interacts with the world, finding beauty in the simplest and most fleeting of moments, and how his personality impacts each agency job. At the core is Phillip’s relationship with Mia; one could immediately pinpoint the moment of clarity where this was never going to be a temporary situation for either of them, as the emotional stakes were far too great.
Fraser also brilliantly conveys the dichotomy between acting in professional interests and doing what feels right. The film depicts this contrast most effectively with another role Phillip plays: a journalist who interviews the iconic Japanese actor Kikuo Hasegawa (the real-life iconic Japanese actor Akira Emoto) to help craft a legacy for Kikuo’s daughter. This storyline emphasizes another theme that Hikari deftly explores: the weight of memories. The agency designs happy moments for their clients to remember, but of course, such moments are also born from spontaneity and lived-in history. In the film’s second half, Phillip provides Kikuo with a unique opportunity that no agency could recreate, as it involves a lifelong connection that has wedged a permanent place in Kikuo’s heart and soul.
The overall concept of “Rental Family” can be overly sentimental, and the story takes a few predictable paths towards resolving conflict. But Hikari refreshingly avoids the idea that this Rental Family agency is the answer. It’s very much not about faking it until you make it; the film makes a stellar impact in taking a grounded approach with its unusual premise, ultimately prioritizing honest interactions between individuals.
