After a scene-stealing turn as a distraught father in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, Brendan Fraser returns to the screen to play a man who has never been a father and never had a father. Hikari’s new movie Rental Family is a family-based film that centres on a real-life Japanese business model to fill the void left by loneliness.
Phillip (Brendan Fraser) is an American actor in Japan, working in cheesy commercials, living alone, and seeking comfort in the hands of a sex worker. One day, he lands an unusual gig to play a ‘Sad American’ at a funeral, through which he gets introduced to ‘Rental Family’, a company selling emotions, not people. He is tasked with playing the father of a child to a single mother, to secure admission to a school, and a journalist to make an ageing actor feel worthy.
Let’s start by saying that Brendan Fraser is amazing, and with each role, he proves that his presence was sorely missed in films. He has that quality that will make you fall in love with his fatherly persona; the way he bonds with Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), the child of a single mother, is wholesome. Their scenes together are the best part of the film.
The film has a good ensemble; besides the aforementioned characters, there is Aiko (Mari Yamamoto), who gets physically bruised as part of her job at ‘Rental Family’. There is Shinji, played by Takehiro Hira, the owner of Rental Family, who can easily convince you of his unique and bizarre business model.
Hikari does well in balancing the humour with heavy-handed themes. We see Phillip in unique situations where he isn’t supposed to be, and most of the jokes are aimed at the eccentric services ‘Rental Family’ provides. Hikari effectively depicts the implications of such a transactional relationship, in which Phillip has to play a father and a companion to an ageing actor.
Preferably, I do think the film could’ve taken a more focused approach. As I said, the best scenes of the film were between Phillip and Mia, with the other scenes feeling like more of a distraction, rather than subplots. While this film wants both of Phillip’s ventures to be equally important, it’s his scenes with Mia that shine. Yet this interesting and unconventional relationship is neglected, to instead give time to other plots.
Rental Family is showing in The Lighthouse throughout early February.
