Rental Family

Grade: B

Rental Family provides a different experience than what is advertised in the trailers and commercials. The plot point highlighted there doesn’t feature as heavily in the movie. There’s more on its plate than they make it appear. It ultimately emerges successfully, in ways that didn’t occur to me beforehand.

Brendan Fraser plays Phillip, an actor who had a quick burst of fame in a popular toothpaste commercial that ran in Japan. He has been staying in Tokyo for the last few years, living the “professional auditioner” lifestyle, hoping lightning strikes again. The obvious comparison here is with Lost in Translation, which had Bill Murray as an actor past his prime, also in Tokyo. The first gig we see Fraser take is a kind I’ve never heard of, never seen before, and I wonder if it’s even a thing in real life. He is playing a Sad American (not much of a stretch) at what turns out to be a mock funeral. The man in the open casket is alive and well. He was depressed, and wanted to hear what family and friends would say about him if he really was gone. It makes him feel better.

This was orchestrated by an organization called Rental Family. They hire actors to stand in for people in reenactments – or hypothetical enactments – for therapeutic purposes. Rental Family sends Phillip on a few more assignments. One of them is to pretend to be a journalist, interviewing an elderly retired film actor going through dementia. His daughter set this up. The piece will never be published anywhere, but that doesn’t matter. The man is so far gone, he won’t remember or realize this. He just wants to feel like the public hasn’t forgotten about him.

Happening at the same time is the subplot which receives the main focus in the trailer. Phillip has to play a long-absent dad returning to the life of a young girl. The mother, Hitomi, is in on it, but the daughter, Mia, thinks it’s real. Hitomi is trying to get Mia into an elite private school, so the presence of a father figure in those meetings before the board will help matters. Once that’s done, the plan is for dad to “have to go back to America,” so hopefully nobody gets too attached. After a rocky start, Mia warms up to Phillip surprisingly quickly and easily – a bit too much so. However, they have chemistry, and the girl is adorable.

The movie raises interesting questions, such as whether it’s worth it to stage these elaborate role play scenarios, or if it’s better to keep things honest and let life take its course – and get a psychologist if need be. Little by little, blanks get filled in regarding Phillip’s personal background, with the actions he chooses to take while on these “assignments,” and why. I am enjoying Fraser’s post-Whale comeback, and he does nice, earnest work here. Hikari, the director, films it in a whimsical, fantastical style, which isn’t anything I would have predicted after months of seeing the trailer.

The ending doesn’t cheat. Though it is optimistic, leaning towards happy, it feels earned and true to life. It’s sneaky how you don’t get quite the journey you may have thought you were in for. I expected Rental Family to either be treacly, saccharine, and formulaic, therefore bad – or somehow work despite still being all that stuff. What it ends up being is fairly dark, dreamy, understated, and uniquely smart. None of those adjectives were on my Bingo card.

Grade: B