Rental Family (2025)
Brendan Fraser’s career is fascinating, is there anything this man can’t do?! He picks interesting roles and while I can’t remember a bad performance, I haven’t seen all of his seventy eight credits.
In Rental Family Fraser plays a jobbing actor, Phillip; mainly appearing in Japanese commercials, he gets a job as an emotional support human, a job which involves turning up at events as part of a con where people pretend to be mourners or husbands or whatever well meaning or cynical reasons the client needs. Apparently rental families have been around since the 1980’s in Japan, if you believe IMDb trivia. I doubt IMDb have a stringent, academic fact vetting process though, and nor should they.
“Mental health issues are stigmatised in this country”. The Japanese suicide rate per capita is actually less depressing than I’d blithely assumed. They’re 49th in the world, and I don’t suggest looking at the league table if you’re in Africa, where suicide seems to be as common as getting a bus.
In no way a funny story, I was a barman in a pub in London and one night a school of Dutch kids (17-18 year olds) came in after the theatre. One girl kept running out sharply followed by the teachers, who later explained to us she was trying to throw herself under a bus on the south circular, because she’d been told her Mum had killed herself back home after her Dad died recently of cancer.
Horrifyingly that isn’t the most awful thing as a barman I’ve witnessed. A regular at one pub I worked in openly said he was going to drink himself to death, the landlady told us we didn’t have to serve him if we were uncomfortable doing so. We did serve him as it was his choice and all the regulars did that just slower, and he completed that awful mission. Still not sure how I feel about that but it’s one for therapy I guess. Most of the others are dead now, too.
Those wonderful recollections aside, Rental Family isn’t a grim affair, fortunately.
Just to be clear, I have no idea how realistic this is regarding sex workers, but I’m guessing not very- a friend of mine was told by a lady of the night that he could have a discount if he made it quick because he was her last customer of the day, bringing a whole new meaning to “knocking off early”. That didn’t help him make it fast.
The set up is predictable but it’s a nightmare of a plot to get right tonally; Rental Family could be too flippant or crass or maudlin or over the top, but it isn’t. Like Goldilocks I found it to be just right, Director Hikari has done a fantastic job there. The story absolutely wouldn’t work set in the UK or not United States, though.
Phillip’s story centres on two main clients: an elderly actor and a young girl. Given how much unsupervised time he spends with these two people I did wonder about the company’s DBS checks, but hey he’s on TV, there’s no wronguns on TV.
Fraser is exceptional, though he’s not alone there (Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Kimura Bun and Shannon Mahina Gorman are believable and great to watch) and I loved that Rental Family addresses and celebrates both ends of life. It is a wonderful and mostly happy film which acknowledges our faults and needs as people of whatever nation.
Humans want connection and validation, and in that sense the story is touching, sweet, happy, sad and confused, just like real emotions! I loved it, and it is a film for the whole family provided your kids are older than about ten. Although I’m not a parent so don’t come back at me if your kids start asking who their real Dad is. 8/10
THE HOLDOVERS
I, TONYA
THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON
THE UPSIDE
MAN OF THE YEAR
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