In Rental Family, connection is never simple – it’s negotiated, performed, and deeply felt in the spaces between what’s said and what’s withheld. Takehiro Hira and Mari Yamamoto bring quiet precision and emotional intelligence to a film that lives in those in-between moments, portraying characters shaped as much by restraint as by longing.
As Brendan Fraser’s drifting outsider enters a world where hired intimacy fills emotional absences, Hira and Yamamoto ground the story in cultural specificity and lived truth. When our Peter Gray spoke with them, their conversation turned personal: how they connected to their characters’ motivations, the moral ambiguities of offering comfort as a service, and what honesty truly looks like in a film that bridges two emotional languages – where, in Japan, restraint can be an act of respect, while in the West, openness is often equated with sincerity. In navigating that tension, Rental Family finds its most quietly devastating truths.
One of the things the film explores is the hiring of others to fill an emotional void. It’s very, deeply human, but it’s surreal at the same time. For both of you, how did you each personally connect to your character’s reasons for participating in this business?
Takehiro Hira: I guess my character was an entrepreneur, and just seeing it as a business, a successful business, but when you see an old man, I would look for something it’s similar to. I would look for something similar, like my late father, and somehow feel attached, or relatable to him. That feeling is natural. I guess that’s why my character started this business, and then he feels, especially in a Metropolitan setting, that people feel lonely and they need some kind of connection.
Mari Yamamoto: I think, for me, I often play characters that care deeply, and I think I am that kind of a person. That spoke to me from the get-go, because I think my character is the one who really is kind of the heart of the business, in a way. Hikari (director) had so many back stories for all of our characters. Reasons for everything. My character used to be an actress, but, for a reason, she can’t act as a professional in the industry anymore. So she pivots to find this job, and she finds real meaning in helping people and really connecting with people. I think she gets a lot out of it too, by being there for others in a way that people perhaps weren’t for her when she needed people. That’s how she finds her own healing through this work.
It really is quite a life affirming movie. You walk out and you just want to hold on to the people you have in your life. It’s really beautiful. And I know that in Japan emotional restraint can be seen as respect, and then in the West, openness is seen as sincerity. Working on a film that bridges both, did it challenge your own ideas of what honesty looks like?
Mari Yamamoto: Such a great question. What honestly looks like? I think it’s so complex, because one of our writers, Stephen (Blahut) and Hikari wrote it together, and Stephen tells the story of how he met somebody, a man on his deathbed, and he had an estranged daughter, and they had a rocky relationship. His daughter wouldn’t come to see him, so he hired somebody to play his daughter so that he could confess all of his sins and apologise and go in peace. There are arguments to be made. Did he deserve that? Maybe from the daughter’s standpoint, he didn’t. But who is to say that somebody didn’t deserve this kind of compassion and dignity at the end of his life? I think, yes, we all want to be honest, and it would make the world an easier place, maybe. I don’t want to seem like I’m advocating for lying. It’s a very tricky thing.
Takehiro Hira: The situation might not be 100%, but in the moment what you feel is honest.
Mari Yamamoto: I love the connections that come from these jobs. They don’t think they’re necessarily fake. I think real, honest connection can happen even in a transactional setting. And who’s to say that you can’t have that, you know? There’s no straight answer to that, I feel.
Rental Family is screening in Australian theatres from Boxing Day, December 26th, 2025.
