FILM OF THE WEEK: Rental Family - Reviewed by Roe McDermott

Rental Family takes a premise that could easily tip into discomfort or moral murkiness, and gently steers it toward something charming, quietly moving, and deliberately superficial. Inspired by real Japanese businesses that allow people to hire actors to stand in as family members, friends, or emotional supports, the film treats emotional substitution not as scandal or spectacle, but as a strangely tender coping mechanism. Tonally akin to films like Lars and the Real Girl (though lacking that film’s lasting emotional impact), it frames dark subject matter through warmth and restraint, choosing empathy over interrogation.

The story centres on Phillip, a struggling American actor who has drifted into an aimless and lonely long-term life in Japan, played with deep vulnerability by Brendan Fraser. Once cast in a ludicrous but lucrative toothpaste commercial, Phillip now survives on auditions that go nowhere and evenings spent alone in his small Tokyo apartment. From his window, he watches the building across the street, where dozens of lives play out simultaneously: families eating dinner, couples arguing, people laughing, people crying. These repeated shots - rows of apartment windows, each framing a different, private life – become one of the film’s most evocative visual motifs, reinforcing the idea that loneliness isn’t about absence of people, but distance from connection.

Phillip stumbles into work with a rental family company almost by accident. The business is run by Shinji, played with controlled warmth and buried sadness by Takehiro Hira, who views emotional role-play as a practical social service in a culture where isolation is widespread and therapy is stigmatised. The company offers a wide range of services: fake wedding guests to save face for families, stand-in romantic partners, hired friends to cheer at karaoke bars, substitute colleagues, mourners at funerals, pretend relatives for social or professional advancement. The work is transactional, but Shinji insists it is ultimately humane.

At first, Phillip’s assignments are relatively light and often played for humour. He is hired as a “sad American” at a mock funeral - only to watch the deceased sit up in his own coffin to enjoy the spectacle of being mourned. He pretends to be a groom in a sham wedding designed to allow a young queer woman to appease her parents while pursuing her own future, and her real love. He becomes a gaming buddy to a lonely man who simply wants someone to share time with. These jobs showcase the film’s nimble tone: always gentle, sometimes absurd, and occasionally moving.

Phillip’s colleagues broaden the emotional scope of the film. Most notable is Aiko, played by Mari Yamamoto, a seasoned rental actor whose assignments are far less playful. She is frequently hired to impersonate mistresses and endure ritualized apologies to furious wives on behalf of cowardly husbands who want to protect their real affair partners. Yamamoto brings depth and frustration to a role that hints at how gender, shame, and power intersect in this industry - though, like many of the film’s heavier themes, it is touched on rather than explored.

As Phillip becomes more involved in the business, the ethics of his jobs get more complicated. He is hired to pose as a journalist interviewing an aging actor, Kikuo, played with heartbreaking dignity by Akira Emoto, a once-famous performer slipping into memory loss and fearing cultural erasure. In another major storyline, Phillip is asked to play the absent father of an 11-year-old girl, Mia, so she can gain admission to an elite private school. Crucially, the child is not told the truth. The emotional consequences of this deception hang over the film, even as it softens their impact through warmth and sentiment.

This is where Rental Family most clearly reveals its priorities. The film acknowledges the troubling nature of these arrangements - lying to children, selling affection, exploiting emotional vulnerability - but it refuses to dwell in discomfort. Themes of homophobia, shame, loneliness, and sex work drift through the narrative but are never delved into, as the film prefers to maintain a gentle, feel-good surface rather than complicate its emotional comfort. That restraint will feel like a missed opportunity to some viewers, but it’s also part of the film’s identity.

Visually, the film is beautifully shot, favouring natural light and everyday spaces over neon-drenched spectacle. Tokyo appears not as an overwhelming metropolis but as a collection of intimate environments - apartments, offices, schools, cafés - each containing its own emotional ecosystem. The cinematography also reflects the film’s thoughtful, if surface-level, reflection on what it means to be a Westerner trying to understand Japanese culture. Phillip’s outsider status is never exaggerated for cheap laughs, but it’s always present: the way he feels physically too large for tightly squeezed subway rides and low doorframes; the emotional distance he experiences in social rituals that remain partially opaque; and in the quiet sense that full belonging may always be just out of reach. What Phillip’s life in the U.S. was like and whether it ever offered more belonging remains a mystery.

Rental Family belongs to Brendan Fraser, whose early performances combined an element of goofy everyman, and whose later performances have allowed his talent for portraying emotion, vulenrability and pathos shine. Those qualities define Phillip, who is not charismatic or clever, but kind, porous, and searching. Fraser makes that feel both authentic and moving, even as his character remains under explored and one-note.

Ultimately, Rental Family is not a film that digs deep, but one that glides gently across the surface of complicated ideas. It prefers charm to confrontation and sentiment to critique, stepping away as its themes threaten to become uncomfortable. That restraint may frustrate viewers hoping for sharper social or cultural commentary, but it also defines the film’s modest appeal. Light, well-crafted, and resonant in small, fleeting moments, Rental Family is a feel-good dramedy content to soothe rather than challenge - pleasant company for a couple of hours, even if it leaves little lasting weight behind. For a film about selling joy and comfort, you will experience both – and may come out feeling a little manipulated.

Directed by Hikari. Written by Hikari, Stephen Blahut. Cinematography by Takuro Ishizaka. Edited by Alan Baumgarten, Thomas A. Krueger.
Starring Stars Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, Shino Shinozaki. 100 mins
In cinemas January now.

• Watch the trailer below: