Rental Family — finding connection in a disconnected world

In the face of our ever-intensifying entanglement with the digital world, authentic human connection (as in the real-life, in-person kind) feels increasingly precious and fleeting.

Although technology like video calls and instant messaging has made staying in touch with loved ones possible no matter the geographic distance between them, screens seem to have become the default mode of communication; even AI chatbots are substituting relationships and therapy in some people’s lives.

In this modern reality, the dramedy film Rental Family becomes a tender ode to the significance of sharing our lives with other humans, whether through friendships, relationships or found family. From actor-turned-director Hikari, Rental Family follows Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser), an American actor living in Tokyo who, while struggling to land a worthwhile acting gig, finds himself in a rather unexpected job.

One morning, Phillip wakes up to a call from his agent offering him a last-minute gig. “What’s my role?” Phillip asks. “Sad American,” his agent responds.

This sets the ball rolling for not only the journey Phillip is about to go on, but also the understated sense of humour at the heart of this charming story. Naturally, Phillip jumps at the job opportunity, finding himself not on the set of a movie or commercial, but rather at a staged funeral for an actual person who doesn’t seem very dead.

Rental Family is inspired by real services in Japan that hire out people to play fake roles in their clients’ real lives, and it’s in this world that Phillip unintentionally gets caught up. Phillip is, at first, understandably cautious about agreeing to take on a full-time job that essentially influences the lives of real people through deception.

“We sell emotion,” Shinji Tada (Takehiro Hira), the founder of this rental agency, tells Phillip. “But you can’t just replace someone in your life,” Phillip asserts. Shinji reassures him that he doesn’t exactly have to be that person: “You just have to help clients connect to what’s missing.”

When Phillip is finally persuaded, he winds up playing the part of a video-gaming friend, a decoy groom, a journalist, and even a father. It’s on these latter two roles that the movie lays its focus, raising questions around the morality of lying to a child about being their absent father, as well as asking where one draws the line between playing pretend and being responsible for a person’s emotional fulfilment. Although these appear to promise an intriguing narrative depth, the film unfortunately glosses over the tensions it poses through its themes, opting instead to home in on sentimentality.

Rental Family tends to have a rushed, unevenly paced development between Phillip and the characters he’s been hired to accompany, primarily in his role as a father to the young girl Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman).

Mia meets this new “father” figure with expected hostility and distrust. Yet, within a couple of scenes they seem to have suddenly overcome that apprehension, making their heartwarming – though predictable – arc feel unearned and possibly even unrewarding to the audience.

However, that downfall is easily forgiven, because it’s Phillip’s bond with an ageing Japanese actor, Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), that packs the film’s real punch. It’s through this connection, and its consequences, that Rental Family delivers its refreshing voice, especially through Phillip’s characterisation and how he navigates his experiences in Japan.

Instead of depending on the easy representation of a narrow-minded Western foreigner who shows little willingness to understand let alone adapt to the host city’s local ways of life, Phillip shows curiosity about the cultures around him. He understands and speaks Japanese, participating in and respecting the country’s traditions. Even in the film’s visual aesthetic, the cityscapes of Tokyo capture a soft glow that’s rare for a city frequently portrayed through its neon-lit nights in Western media.

Yet, no cultural immersion is smooth sailing, and Rental Family taps into that inevitability, albeit hesitantly. At the climax of one of the film’s storylines, Phillip and his client butt heads over the best way to go about the scenario he’d been hired to enact. To express emotions or withhold them? To challenge social norms or abide by them?

Though well intentioned, the exchange and its conflict are written in a way that comes across as a rather clunky acknowledgement of the characters’ cultural differences, one that could be perceived as a justification of American values overstepping those of Japan, and so, falling short of its attempt to convey how distinct cultures could complement each other.

Putting aside its ethical and narrative technicalities, Rental Family is, at its core, about how so much of being human is in the desire to be truly seen and how that opens the door to recognise one’s inherent worth.

“Sometimes, all we need is someone to look us in the eye and remind us we exist,” a fellow rental actor, Aiko Nakajima (Mari Yamamoto), explains to Phillip. And it’s this that Rental Family never loses sight of, particularly through Fraser’s natural affability and humility, which allow his performance to centre and serve his screen partners as much as his character does his clients.

For movie watchers who are put off by stories driven mostly by sentimentality, Rental Family might come across as saccharine and lacking in nuance. But, for those who don’t mind an uncomplicated tale, the film’s simplicity lives up to what it sets out to do: making its audience feel just a little bit brighter.

“It’s about human connection and the importance of human connection,” director and co-writer Hikari says in an interview with Picturehouse, “so that everybody knows that we’re not alone.” DM

Rental Family is playing in cinemas.