As outlandish as it sounds, in the early 1990s in Japan a rental family service (レンタル家族), or professional stand-in service, was founded to provide clients with actors who portray friends, family members, or coworkers for social events such as weddings, or to provide platonic companionship.
In a city as big as Tokyo the idea of loneliness is understandable – regardless if you’re a foreigner or not – and through Hikari‘s delicate direction and script (co-written with Stephen Blahut) this practice is explored with both warmth and sobering heartbreak in Rental Family.
Navigating a sense of loneliness that he hopes to transform into a cure for the isolation of others, American actor Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser) is in a state of career drifting after finding initial, momentary success as a toothpaste commercial mascot. It’s been nearly a decade of minor roles, with our first meeting with him as he’s rushing to yet another audition. The role of “sad American” doesn’t sound entirely promising, but it is a gig willing to pay him – with no audition to boot – and when he arrives at what he believes is the set, he’s taken aback by the funeral set-up and that the deceased is, well, not deceased.
Phillip is understandably confused, but the scenario organiser, Shinji (Takehiro Hira), thanks him for his service and informs Phillip that he can offer him roles that actually mean something. “Token White Guy” doesn’t exactly sound like the most career-projecting moniker, but Shinji assures Phillip that taking part in the rental service will provide a wealth of good to those whose livelihood often hinges on a certain lie.
Phillip’s first major role as the fiancé to a younger woman bound for Canada doesn’t sit well with his moral compass. He believes he’s messing with people’s lives and doesn’t feel correct in actively participating in such a grand farce, but realising that this young woman can’t live her live freely with her girlfriend under her family’s rule makes him see the value in happiness at the expense of a certain deception, and so, with the encouragement of the service’s other main workers, Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) and Kota (Kimura Bun), he reluctantly takes on his role.
Two main roles take up the majority of Phillip’s time across Rental Family‘s 110 minutes, that of acting as a reporter interviewing a famous actor, Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), under the guise of a career retrospective (his daughter creating the scenario to appease Kikuo’s dementia), and as the formerly absent father to young Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), whose mother, Hitomi (Shino Shinozaki), needs a father figure to assist in bolstering Mia’s application to a prestigious private school.
Juxtaposing the emotional and seemingly rewarding experiences that Phillip earns, Hikari and Blahut’s script also dedicates time to Aiko’s rental contracts, where she so often encounters angry wives and subsequent battery as the “mistress” of the unfaithful husbands, essentially acting as their apology mouthpiece. It’s the mounting degradation that she experiences that eventually brings about Aiko’s realisation as to what she wants within the construct of the rental family business, which serves as a more direct psychological subplot opposite the largely emotionally-laced story strands for Phillip, who can’t help but start to feel attached to the ailing Kikuo and, particularly, Mia, who starts to bond with her “father.”
Fraser has an effortless affability about him, and such a temperament allows us to go along with him on his journey – even though, like Phillip, we’re entirely aware that the emotional connection he forms is only going to end in a certain tragedy. Really, despite a premise that could be thought of as being ripe for farce or heightened situational comedy, Rental Family is bittersweet and quite an honest look at the human condition of loneliness. It’s life affirming in many ways, and though it’s presented through a distinct Japanese solution, thematically it proves incredibly universal.
A beautiful, non-judgmental dramedy, Rental Family honours the service at its core, celebrating the importance of human connection – however it may present itself – whilst addressing that what should be afforded to all isn’t always given. Hikari’s gentle film is a reminder of how fortunate many of us are without truly realising such.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Rental Family is screening in Australian theatres from Boxing Day, December 26th, 2025.
