We shared the trailer for Rental Family a little while back, and it looked interesting, although it also looked like it was just someone filming Brendan Fraser trying to get work in Tokyo. I sat down with Mrs Boba and checked it out.
Rental Family stars Fraser, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, and Akira Emoto. Hikari directs and writes, alongside Stephen Blahut.
The Story
The story is about an actor working in Japan:
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.
Philip (Fraser) has been living in Tokyo for seven years. He had one big TV commercial there and ended up staying. Philip doesn’t get much work until he’s offered the role of ‘Sad American’ for a funeral.
He goes and finds out the funeral is fake, and for someone who wanted to experience his funeral before he dies.
It turns out, an agency sets up things like fake funerals, apologies, and grooms for weddings. A Japanese woman offers Philip a job as her fake foreign groom. All he has to do is show up, pretend to marry her, and walk away.
The lady getting married has told her family she’s going to marry and move to Canada. The truth is, she’s a lesbian and doesn’t want to disrespect her family. Philip marries her, going through the ‘play’, and she’s free to live her life.
After the wedding, Philip and his new ‘bride’ are in the hotel room. I thought, happy days, let’s keep the role up…what do newlyweds do on their first night together?
Sadly, the ‘play’ is now all over, and there is a knock at the door. It’s the bride’s girlfriend. Again, I thought brilliant! Then Philip leaves the couple to live their lives.
One Father, Please
Philip takes on other roles: a new friend for a lonesome gamer, a fake reporter for an actor whose daughter thinks he’s been forgotten about, and a father for a young girl.
The mother of the girl is on her own and knows the daughter won’t get into a good school without a father present.
The mother gives Philip all the details, and he goes to meet her. Mia (Mahina Gorman) was told her father was American and left soon after she was born. All Philip has to do is convince Mia he is her father, do the school interview and leave.
Young Mia isn’t all that impressed to meet her ‘father’, and makes him pinky swear that he won’t leave. Nice, it’ll be nice to see this young girls heart breaking later in the movie.
I have some questions…
Another main part of the story is Philip pretending to be a reporter for a magazine, interviewing Kikuo Hasegawa (Emoto), an ageing actor. His daughter has set everything up with the agency, and Philip just needs to talk to Kikuo about his life.
Kikuo wants to travel back to his hometown, but his daughter doesn’t want to. Philip ends up befriending him, and they do a ‘jail break’ to make the trip.
As per usual, there is a lot I’m missing off the story, but it is very well written, and I can’t lie, I shed a tear or two at the end of the Rental Family.
Morally Questionable
Firstly, to answer the question about one set of morals about the movie, aka, The Leon Effect, no, this movie is not like this. There is zero inclination about Philip and Mia being anything other than father and daughter.
Philip is acting as Mia’s father, but ends up feeling sorry for her and her mother. The mother has no other option for her daughter, but thought that Philip would just ‘play the role’ and leave. Sadly, Philip feels sorry for the little girl and wants to be the father she thinks he is.
This raises another moral question: if you pretend to be someone’s friend, can you remain emotionally detached from them?
As I said, you know that Philip will have to break Mia’s heart at some point, but you have to follow it. Then there is the other main story, about Kikuo. He’s doing the same thing, but the more time he spends with him, the more Philip likes him as a friend.
Overall
Rental Family is a very good movie; it’s very well written, and the cast is excellent, especially young Mahina Gorman. It’s not overly complicated, and I found it original. I mean, it’s the same basic story, but a good take on it.
It is nice to see Fraser working again. As we all know, the guy has been through a lot, and he should have had a glittering career in movies. This was sadly cut short, but he’s now back and making movies like Rental Family.
As I said at the outset, there seems to be a little bit of truth to the movie; a struggling Fraser trying to get work and taking whatever roles come along. I was never sure if he was acting or if someone was just following him around with the camera. I guess that’s how good he is in Rental Family.
I’m giving the movie a solid 3.5 out of 5 stars. It’s very well directed, and the story is involving. You know what’s going to happen towards the end, but you still wonder how they will deal with it.
Rental Family is on VoD in the US at the moment.
