[TIFF 2025] REVIEW: ‘Rental Family’ finds fulfillment in an unexpected job
Brendan Fraser and Shannon Mahina Gorman in Rental Family, directed by Hikari.
Plenty of movies have examined the life of actors. It’s a bit of a trope at the Oscars when movies about moviemaking capture the hearts of the Academy; after all, who doesn’t like to see their chosen profession glamourized on a big screen, laying bare all the work that goes into your craft?
Sadly for Phillip (Brendan Fraser), he isn’t the sort of actor who would end up at the Oscars, being lauded by his peers. He’s lived in Japan for 7 years, and has become fairly fluent in the language. We don’t know what brought him to the country or why he stays. Most of his gigs are commercials for toothpaste or other consumer goods, and you can see how it’s wearing on him. He’s slow to get out of bed, late to auditions and call times. That is, until he gets a call from his agent, asking him to attend a last-minute job. When Phillip shows up, he finds himself at a funeral, albeit one where the dead guy is actually still alive in his coffin; the allegedly-deceased has hired fake mourners to simulate the ceremony, and the phony eulogies help cure him of the funk he’s been in.
It’s revealed that Phillip was hired by a rental company that specializes in this kind of work, owned by Shinji (Takehiro Hira). Shinji’s company is called in to cast actors to help everyday Japanese people navigate challenging social scenarios. The actors can boost the number of mourners at funerals, befriend lonely people, or allow a cheating husband to cover his tracks by having an actor pose as his mistress and apologize to his wife. It’s bizarre, but apparently necessary work, as Phillip learns that psychotherapy and other more direct (American?) solutions are stigmatized in Japan.
Phillip (Fraser) also works alongside Aiko (Mari Yamamoto).
Initially, Phillip turns down Shinji’s offer to work with them regularly. His previous journeyman gigs seem less risky. But when his next job as a surrogate husband helps a woman flee Japan to be with her girlfriend, he begins to see how his skills can help people beyond selling products or short bursts of entertainment. He becomes a regular player in Shinji’s improvisational company, and Rental Family follows him via two major roles: as a father to a young girl trying to get into a prestigious school, and as a journalist writing a profile of a legendary actor.
In terms of setup, the film bears a passing resemblance to Lost in Translation, but unlike Bill Murray’s character in Sofia Coppola's movie, Fraser’s Phillip isn’t quite as unmoored. He’s comfortable in Japan as a whole, but he’s still looking for emotional connection and career fulfillment in a country where he has no family of his own and where he’s still viewed as an outsider. Fraser, with his sad eyes and big frame, is superbly cast for this kind of awkward role, and he brings a sweetness to the film that makes Phillip easy to root for.
The ethics of what Shinji’s company is doing are not glazed over. Phillip bonds with his clients, and it’s not long before Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), the girl whose absent father he’s posing as, begins to see him as her real parent. Similarly, the elderly actor Kikuo (Akira Emoto) begins to treat Phillip as a confidant and a means of escaping the watchful eye of his daughter. Both of these simulated relationships lead to difficult and almost dire consequences. As useful as this company of actors may be to their clients in the moment, their services don’t address the root cause of the social problems they’re facing. Even the company’s bread-and-butter “apology” service is shown to expose Phillip’s colleague Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) to abuse and perpetuates clients’ marital problems.
Shinji (Takehiro Hira) runs the rental company.
However, for anyone who watched the first season of Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal, Rental Family acts as a soothing chaser. Whereas The Rehearsal depicts Fielder potentially scarring a real child by playing his father in meticulously rehearsed scenes, viewers can take comfort that everyone in Rental Family is fictional. Fraser and Gorman are great together as pseudo father and daughter, but you won’t worry that Gorman got confused when filming stopped. As a result, Rental Family is an obvious crowdpleaser. The film offers a reassuring, straightforward narrative that Fielder’s disturbing docu-comedy eschews, as unique and brilliant as the show may be.
As touching as Rental Family is, there are moments where the drama feels a bit overwrought. I’m not sure if that’s down to the sweeping score (co-composed by Jon Thor Birgisson, the lead singer of Sigur Rós), or a script that works a little too hard to pull heartstrings. Either way, it’s a small distraction from an otherwise outstanding film with loads of mass appeal. I expect the director, Hikari, will be back with more in the future.
Rental Family gets four stars out of four.
Stray thoughts
I wonder if they shot more examples of Phillip’s kooky commercials and cut them for time.
The film is a little reunion for Yamamoto and Hira, who appear together in Apple’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.