After an actor receives an Academy Award, whether it’s their first or not, the audiences ask: “What will be the film they do next?” In comes Brendan Fraser, whose first leading role after winning the Oscar for Darren Aronofsky’s divisive The Whale (2022), starring in Rental Family, directed by Hikari. For the former, it was a performance filled with essences of rage and anger, while the latter has Fraser showcasing a more tender and vulnerable side, with very positive results.

In Rental Family, we meet Phillip Vandarploeug (Fraser) as an unfulfilled American actor living in Tokyo. For seven years, he has been hoping to find the role of a lifetime, and now, most days, he is confined to his cramped apartment, feeling disconnected from the big city outside. In one of the film’s earliest sequences, Phillip is alone at his apartment window, staring into the hallways of other buildings where strangers are hugging, arguing, or just being together, and Phillip’s loneliness can be witnessed, though not a single word is muttered out of his mouth. Fraser, from the get-go, perfectly emotes Phillip’s pain, without being spoon-fed an exposition dump.

Phillip’s professional and emotional rut is interrupted when he gets a last-minute acting job. He is asked to play a “sad American” at a staged funeral. This event has been set up for a man who wants to attend his own memorial. The job takes Phillip to a unique company called Rental Family. It is run by Shinji (Takehiro Hira), and its mission is to hire actors to pretend to be missing family members or friends for clients looking for some closure or companionship. 

With his coworker Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) encouraging him, Phillip decides to give the work a try. In a surprising twist, he explores a world where performance and sincerity come together. In one assignment, Phillip plays a surrogate father to Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), an 11-year-old girl whose mother (Shino Shinozaki) wants to create a family illusion. In another, he pretends to be a journalist interviewing a retired actor (Akira Emoto), who is gradually losing his memory. These stories show not just the emotional needs of the clients, but also Phillip’s growing connection to the roles he takes on.

Hikari, working with a screenplay co-written with Stephen Blahut, creates the film with quiet elegance. This gives Rental Family room for emotional depth to develop naturally. If in the hands of a different filmmaker, the melodrama would’ve been at the center, but Hikari and Blahut choose instead to focus on the everyday lives of the characters and their emotional needs. The relationships Phillip forms, particularly with Mia and her mother, serve as one of the film’s most emotional elements. Phillip not only helps others address their emotional gaps, but they also help him discover a sense of meaning and belonging.

Fraser’s depiction of Phillip is characterized by sensitivity and introspection. It is poignant to watch an actor portray a man for whom a life built upon pretense is now presented with a new opportunity for a degree of realness through acting. Fraser effortlessly moves between humorously awkward, fatherly tender, and fundamentally wistful. It’s another reminder of why it’s irresistible to want to get a gigantic, warm hug from him.

Although Rental Family has an emotional punch, some elements of the story feel sidelined. The supporting characters, such as Shinji and Aiko, are well-intentioned, but their inner experiences feel largely ignored. Specifically, there is a late-third-act revelation about Shinji’s motivations, which is the only insight we get. It comes too late and is way too brief to provide a significant contribution. Much like with Shinji, the snapshots of Phillip’s past are too short to provide much insight. None of this lessens or derails the film, but at the same time, it would have been nice to see more development of the characters over the course of the film.

Rental Family may have its rough edges, but at its core, it is a surprisingly warm and reflective film. What really works is how it feels both low-key and sincere. The film isn’t about sweeping dramatic moments, but trying to find what we misplaced, or trying to reconnect with someone we’ve drifted from or let go, or both. It contemplates how we sometimes create stories or expectations in our heads to help make sense of loss and distance—and how something that begins feeling somewhat inauthentic can create real feelings.

Review Courtesy of Bryan Sudfield

Featured Image Credit to Searchlight Pictures via TIFF