Rental Family explores a simple question: If you pretend to care for long enough, when does it start to feel real? Mayur Sanap gives us a closer look.
Key Points
- Brendan Fraser stars in this light-hearted comedy about a rental family agency.
- Directed by Hikari, Rental Family showcases a unique aspect of Japanese culture.
- The emotional sincerity of the film makes it a wholesome and feel-good watch.
In today's world, almost everything can be rented.
Clothes for a wedding, cars for a road trip, furniture and electronics for an apartment, and even high-end gadgets for technical needs. But can feelings be hired too? Say a companion who takes care of all your emotional needs, that kind of person?
This intriguing question lies at the heart of Rental Family, a poignant drama led by the fantastic Brendan Fraser.
What's Rental Family About?
Set in modern-day Tokyo, Rental Family follows an agency that lets people hire temporary family members or companions.
The premise may sound far-fetched or even absurd but a Google search will tell you that such businesses actually exist in contemporary Japan.
Helmed by acclaimed Japanese filmmaker Hikari, the story draws from real-life incidents that show the human desire for genuine connections.
Fraser plays aAmerican actor Phil, who has spent seven years in Tokyo chasing a career that never quite materialised. He appears in minor commercials and forgettable gigs, pushing him towards an unexciting and creatively unsatisfying life.
He speaks Japanese and understands the culture, yet he remains an outsider, living a lonely life in a foreign country.
A service agency seeking a 'token white man' approaches Phil to play fabricated roles in clients' lives.
Phil is taken by surprise by the nature of the job, but gives it a go.
His first assignment is to pose as a groom at a staged wedding, allowing a young, closeted woman to escape her family under the pretence of moving abroad.
After successfully completing the assignment, Phil gradually begins to see how his unusual work can meaningfully affect the lives of people who are strangers to him.
He is then hired to be the long-lost father figure of a young girl named Mia. Mia's mother is a single parent who hopes that presenting a stable, loving family will improve her daughter's chances of getting into a good school.
In another, he takes on the role of a journalist, forming a friendship with an aging actor with dementia who wants someone to listen to his life story.
In each case, a client is the emotional focus as much as Phil. He realises that his work is more than just performance, it also requires empathy. He gradually finds himself forming genuine emotional bonds with the people he meets.
The beauty of Rental Family
What truly stands out in Rental Family is the way Hikari treats its unusual premise with sensitivity rather than satire.
The film explores a simple question: If you pretend to care for long enough, when does it start to feel real?
In that way, it reminded me of As We See It, the under-rated Prime Video series about three autistic roommates navigating adulthood.
Much like that show, here, the characters and situations are presented with an empathetic gaze with real warmth and understanding about them, without becoming overly sentimental. The interactions between the characters feel honest and heartfelt that often makes you smile, and also weep a little.
Brendan Fraser gives a heartfelt performance
Rental Family benefits enormously from Brendan Fraser's heartfelt performance.
He plays Phil with a soft, sincere quality that comes across almost childlike at times. You can sense a quiet sadness in him, which, in many ways, feels like a follow-up to his Oscar-winning work in Darren Aronofsky's The Whale. But here, the emotions are softer, and the world is a little less heartbreaking.
It is also nice to see the way the film captures the richness and quiet beauty of Japanese culture with a gentle nudge on its daily traditions and social customs.
There's a touching line in the film that notes even a lifetime in Japan may not be enough to fully comprehend it, highlighting the depth and complexity of its culture. Moments like this land like an emotional sucker punch, even though the film maintains a light and gentle tone.
The story can feel predictable at times. Still, that does not take away from the experience.
It is ultimately the emotional sincerity of the film that makes it a wholesome and feel-good watch.
Rental Family streams on JioHotstar.
