Sometimes, It’s Okay to Pretend

Every awards season seems to have one: An unassuming crowd-pleaser that sneaks up on voters and somehow finds its way into the race. (Think CODA.) This year, that film might be Rental Family. It’s not a prestige drama, and it’s certainly not hitting theaters with a tidal wave of buzz like some other films are (ahem, Wicked: For Good). Rather, it’s a smaller film that’s gentle, observant, and deeply human, and anyone who sees it is bound to be moved. 

Rental Family stars Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser (Encino Man, The Whale) as Phillip Vandarpleog, a struggling American actor living in Japan, who is still waiting for his big break. Till that happens, he gets by with random commercial gigs and other blink-and-you’ll-miss-them acting jobs. 

It’s this unsteady, in-between life that makes him the perfect candidate for an unusual company called Rental Family — a business that hires actors to play whatever stand-in role a client needs: a best friend, a mistress, a funeral attendee, a sibling, a spouse, or a groom. Essentially, it’s human companionship as a service. (HCaaS?) Or, to put it another way: “We sell emotion,” Phillip’s new boss (Takehiro Hira) tells him.

The film’s story mostly centers on two of Phillip’s “assignments”: One is Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), a young girl who is told by her mother that Phillip is her father. The other is Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), a retired actor whose memory is slipping, who is told by his daughter that Phillip is a journalist writing a feature about his life. Phillip gets plenty of warning from his employer that he should keep a boundary and not get too personal, but he naturally forms genuine bonds with his clients that blur the lines between performance and reality.

It’s hard not to, really. Mia is smart and sweet, and Kikuo is reflective and joyful as only a man who knows he’s close to death can be. And, they provide Phillip with just as much value as he provides to them. Watching Phillip navigate these relationships (and their moral grey areas) is one of the film’s biggest pleasures. The movie gives the interactions time and space to breathe, and it trusts its audience enough not to spell everything out, though we know where the storylines are probably headed.

Through it all, Fraser delivers a beautifully understated performance — maybe one of his most quietly affecting. Phillip is a guy who wears his heart pretty much everywhere: on his sleeve, on his face, in every attempt he makes to “perform” for the people who start to rely on him. But what’s striking is how Fraser never overplays this. Even his most emotional scenes feel grounded, like the warmth comes from somewhere lived-in rather than dramatic. It’s not a showy performance, but it’s the kind people should talk about at awards time.

Director Hikari (real name: Mitsuyo Miyazaki), a Japanese filmmaker who co-wrote the script with Stephen Blahut, brings a lovely visual aesthetic to the film. One of her most effective touches is the recurring imagery of windows — framed views into other people’s worlds. Sometimes you see someone inside, and sometimes you don’t. But each window signals a life being lived, a story unfolding just out of reach. And in a movie about a man hired to temporarily enter other people’s stories, that motif works beautifully.

Even better, Hikari’s sensibility is subdued and respectful without being removed from its subject. Clearly, she knows the setting well: The rental-family industry is a legit thing in Japan, where access to mental health support is limited and social expectations are more rigid. In another director’s hands, the film might have been more pandering, a culture-clash comedy with the emotion more surface-level. Hikari instead has made a cross-cultural study of performance and longing that keeps things real and balanced without ever being cloying.

It’s worth noting that Rental Family feels like a spiritual cousin to Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. It shares a similar (but obviously not identical) premise about an American actor in Tokyo, the sense of being untethered in a foreign place, and the longing for connection that transcends language barriers. Given that, you could imagine a version of this film with Bill Murray in the lead instead of Fraser, and it might have had a comparable emotional resonance. But Fraser brings a raw, vulnerable sweetness that makes this version its own thing.

That said: Watching the two as a double-feature is recommended.

Sure, we know the shoes will drop late in the film when Phillip gets a little too close with his clients, and at least one of them realizes he’s not who he says he is. And the pacing occasionally drifts. But these are small quibbles in a film that does so much right — and with such tenderness.

In the end, Rental Family is a poignant movie about loneliness, belonging, and the strange ways we connect with other people. It’s warm, moving … and the kind of film you’ll want to share with someone else.

I’m giving it a B+.