‘Rental Family’ Lacks Focus but Remains Wholesome
Rental Family is one of those films made with the intention of pouring an ounce of softness into the world. Other examples being We Bought A Zoo, Minari, and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. And it all stems from a foreign concept in the Western world; the idea of hiring an individual to serve as a friend or family member for a brief time. As a profession, serving as a paid friend requires a wholesome personality. As an actor, there aren’t many as wholesome on screen as Brendan Fraser. A movie as outwardly grim as The Whale could not subdue Fraser’s disarming presence.
Rental Family is another film that knows how to use Fraser’s charisma perfectly. It further cements his career resurgence after garnering such praise for The Whale, demonstrating why he never should have been pushed out of Hollywood for a time. And it does so while telling a heartwarming story centered around the world’s most unique profession.
What is Rental Family about?
Directed by Hikari and written by Hikari and Stephen Blahut, the movie centers on Philip (Brendan Fraser), an American actor living in Japan who is trying to find work. For the most part, Philip can only find commercial jobs, while his agent works tirelessly in the background to secure him a big break.
He manages to catch the attention of a significant business owner, Shinji (Takehiro Hira), who needs his skills. The job seems simple at first: he becomes an actor for people who need him to pretend to be someone he’s not—whether it’s a friend, a boyfriend, a made-up relative, etc. That is, until the first gig proves extremely difficult, requiring Philip to enter into a fake marriage.
His coworker Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) lashes out at him for having reservations about the commitment, stating that the wedding serves a greater purpose. Philip begins to see the positive as the fake ceremony allows the client to free herself from the bigotry of her family and to live a happy life in an LGBTQ relationship.
Once he settles into a groove, Phillip is given his next big assignment, which is the task of playing the role of an estranged father to a young girl named Mia (Shannon Gormand). Her mother, Hitomi (Shino Shinozaki), requires Philip to play the role so Mia can be accepted into the right school. But Mia has never met her birth father and greets him coldly. And the more he wears down Mia’s defenses, the more Philip finds himself charmed by Mia.
Hikari and Stephen Blahut’s script loses focus
The movie begins juggling two story threads simultaneously: the one in which Philip plays the role of Mia’s long-lost father. The other involves a job where he pretends to be a journalist doing a piece on a retired actor named Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), who is losing a battle to dementia under the care of his overprotective daughter.
Both narratives have their moments of charm, especially with how Fraser plays Philip’s sincere approach to his work. But along the way, the attempt to serve both narratives underserves the most interesting part of the film, which involves Mia’s complicated growing attachment to Philip.
The Mia and Philip relationship also resonates strongly on a thematic level. The work has a policy that requires the worker not to become too emotionally close to the client. It’s a heartbreaking predicament as we see a guarded child begin to disarm herself around a man she believes to be her father, and we, the audience, know how devastating it will be if Mia finds out Phil is simply an actor. Some touching performances further strengthen the emotional hook between them and arguably catapults Fraser into the Tom Hanks category.
Despite the screenplay’s lack of focus, it’s the filmmaker’s connection to the story that truly shines through. Like Mia, Hikari grew up without a father, making the elements of Rental Family feel truly sentimental. And it comes across strongly in the filmmaking, both in its substance and in the cultural aspects that flow throughout the film.
Rental Family is also a story about selfless acts
It’s the tenderness behind the father-daughter dynamic that makes Rental Family have weight. It’s the way Philip looks at Mia as if she were his own child. It’s the way he knows her intelligence and her style of humor. And the infectious chemistry they share on screen makes the viewer root for them to become a forever family.
Moreover, Rental Family is another solid examination of transactional relationships from a wildly different perspective. For all the Anoras and Pretty Women, Rental Family is one of the few taking a microscope to the friendship side of business. It is far from perfect, with pacing issues and subplots that often get in the way of the overall story. But there is something undeniably sweet at the core of Rental Family.
It’s a heartwarming story about the simple act of selflessness towards others, and with the holidays in full swing, it’s the one movie that has the coziness for the moment.
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