Fraser delivers sensitive performance in affecting heartfelt drama
Rental Family is the second new film in a week with an actor as its protagonist. But Phillip, a struggling, unknown American actor in Japan, couldn’t be more different than the uber-successful, movie star Jay of Jay Kelly. Despite the differences in their lead characters, however, both films deftly touch on universal themes of loneliness, connection, and empathy.
Oscar winner Brendan Fraser (The Whale) plays Phillip, an American expat actor who has called Tokyo home for the past seven years and who gets by with parts in loud, bad Japanese commercials and B-movies. While longing for his big break, Phillip stumbles into a gig as a “rental family” actor. These “rental families,” in which strangers act as people missing or needed in client lives, are legitimate businesses in Japan, as detailed in numerous articles over the past few years. Japanese writer/director Hikari and her co-writer Stephen Blahut carve a terrific story out of this phenomenon, and Fraser delivers another soulful, award-worthy performance.
While the rental family concept may seem odd to Americans, Shinji (Takehiro Hira, Shogun), the owner of the rental family firm employing Phillip, explains that mental health issues are stigmatized in Japan. Often hiring a stranger causes less stress and trouble than admitting feelings of isolation, unhappiness, or depression. As Shinji tells Phillip, the rental family business offers “perfect happiness,” and clients “are willing to take a leap to help them connect.”
And so Phillip, who himself is mostly alone, especially as an always noticeable tall, large, white foreigner in an often bustling, confusing foreign land, connects with his clients in spite of himself. Among his assignments: a closeted lesbian bride hires him to masquerade as her groom so her conservative family will think she’s married to a man; a daughter hires him to impersonate a journalist to interview her aging famous actor father about his career; and in the film’s most affecting thread, a single mother hires Phillip to pose as a father to her young daughter (Shannon Gorman, a delight) to help her admittance to an exclusive private school.
With each encounter, Phillip finds himself enjoying the fake relationship so much that we in the audience know something bad is bound to happen to break the fantasy. In that vein, the film is a bit predictable. When we see Phillip bonding with his “daughter” and his new elderly actor friend, we know that sooner or later the truth will come out, and the consequences will be shattering. But such storyline predictability doesn’t detract from the film’s overarching tenderness and honest emotional warmth. As much as we don’t want Phillip’s clients to get hurt, we equally want them–and him–to find authentic friendship and intimacy.
These themes are further underscored by two side stories. The first involves Aiko (Mari Yamamoto), another of the firm’s employees, who provides often dangerous “apology” services in which she’s hired by cheating men to apologize to their partners. The second, a twist in Shinji’s story, brings a welcome unexpected surprise to the otherwise largely conventional script. That Phillip is the catalyst for the changes these characters undergo affirms the power of genuine relationships to help us grow and more fully know ourselves. The film’s poignant but no less satisfying ending delicately delivers that message as well, and it’s one that will stay with you.
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Rental Family is now playing in theaters, including at the Grand Lake and Landmark Piedmont in Oakland, the AMC Bay Street in Emeryville, the Elmwood in Berkeley, and the AMC Metreon, AMC Kabuki, Alamo Drafthouse, and Presidio Theatre in San Francisco.
