Rental Family is a film that will leave you smiling long after the credits roll.
Brendan Fraser shines in his first role post Oscar win playing struggling American actor Phillip Vandarpleog, plying his trade in Tokyo. Phillip has been in Japan for seven years but is still mainly known for his role as a super hero toothpaste in a commercial that brought him to the country originally. He has tried his best to assimilate into the culture, learning fluent Japanese and continues to try and find another role but he remains an outsider to those around him. Fraser’s calm steadfast demeanor enhances what we suspect from the moment we first meet Phillip, he is lonely. He spends his nights sitting alone in an apartment that is way too small for someone his size, eating dinner at his window with his neighbours though they are unaware of his existence.
Down on his luck and feeling desperate he takes a gig that he knows nothing about, his only direction is that he will be playing a sad American. After a surprising sequence of events Phillip meets Shinji (Takehiro Hira) owner of the “Rental Family” agency, a company that sells emotion to its clients in the form of perceived human connections. Seeing something in Phillip, Shinji offers him an ongoing job as he needs a “token white guy” for more specialised clients.
Phillips’ first role is that of an older Canadian husband for a young woman wanting to leave Japan but family tradition and honour is causing her issues. Phillips’ performance provides the family with a day to remember and creates lasting memories for her parents so that she can leave on a positive note and be with who she wants to.
Rental Family highlights an unusual premise that many of us in more western countries may find a little strange. Shinji and his dedicated offsider Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) firmly explain to their new colleague, and all of us watching along, that mental health and the pursuit of assistance for it are still somewhat taboo in Japan. Phillip is an outsider and he will never fully understand why this service actually makes sense and just how much it can help people.
It isn’t until Phillip is given his two most important roles that he begins to understand. His first is to play the father to 11 year old Mia (Shannon Gorman) whose single mother is desperate to get her enrolled in a prestigious private school, one that frowns on broken families. The ethical ambiguity though is that Mia cannot know he is not really her father. His next is a journalist pretending to be interviewing legendary Japanese actor Kikuo Hasegawa (played by the legendary Akira Emoto), Kikuo’s daughter has hired the agency as her father is beginning to physically and mentally fade away and she wants him to remember what it felt like to have people remember him.
Predictably Phillip plays these two roles with the most heart and begins to blur the lines between actor and a pivotal personal role in his clients lives. Though both are equally moving, his relationship with Mia seems to provide Phillip and Mia with the most healing. We see Mia come out of her shell with her faux father and really warms to him after initially showing hostility to an absent parent. He begins to show her another side of family that she had been missing in her young years; they become texting buddies so neither has to feel alone and take trips together, without her mother, to better get to know one another. Through all this Phillip literally begins to shine. Gone is his sombre downtrodden frame wandering the streets of Tokyo, replaced with a sense of purpose and newfound direction in his life that had been missing. He cleans his apartment, walks with a spring in his step and begins to look all around better. Fraser superbly conveys the emotional shift within Phillip with an expertly expressive performance that is core to the heart of the film.
Rental Family deals with feelings of loneliness and separation, the human need for connection and the need to find one’s purpose in life. It could easily descend into a heavy handed emotional roller coaster but some clever directing and the chemistry between each of the actors keeps it light hearted yet touching and intimately human.
One thing that may be a deal breaker for some is that a fair amount of the movie is in Japanese (subtitled of course) and switches between English and Japanese frequently and sometimes when not expected. The switching of language adds another layer to the story and while I barely noticed I know some will find it frustrating.
Despite what we may occasionally say we all crave some type of connection in our lives and Rental Family understands this, reminding us all of the positive impact the right people can have on our lives.
Rental Family is in cinemas locally from Boxing Day.
