Film Review: Rental Family 日租家庭 (2025) - US / Japan
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 8/10
Rating: ★★★★
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The peculiar magic of cinema often lies in its ability to make the specific universal, and the bizarre profoundly relatable. Japanese Hikari, the director who dissected simmering rage in "Beef," now turns her perceptive gaze towards a quieter, yet no less potent, form of human yearning in “Rental Family." This is not the broad, fish-out-of-water comedy the logline might suggest. Instead, Hikari crafts a soulful, bittersweet meditation on performance, loneliness, and the fragile bridges we build towards connection. It earns its marks not through grand gestures, but through profound empathy and quiet observation.
The premise, rooted in the real (and faintly unsettling) Japanese industry of renting stand-in family members for events, is fertile ground. It could have been mined for easy laughs or cynical jabs at modern alienation. Hikari, however, chooses a far more delicate, rewarding path. She uses it as a lens to examine the roles we all play – son, daughter, father, friend – and the aching vulnerability beneath the performance.
At the heart of this exploration is Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser, delivering a performance that solidifies his remarkable resurgence not as a fluke, but as a testament to his deep well of humanity. His Phillip is a washed-up American actor adrift in Tokyo, his career reduced to playing rented roles for cash. Fraser embodies him with a "puppy-dog weariness" that is utterly heartbreaking. This isn't just an actor doing a job; Phillip is a man so estranged from his own identity, so hollowed out by failure, that he finds a perverse comfort in inhabiting someone else's script. Watch the exquisite physicality Fraser brings: the earnest, slightly clumsy attempts to navigate Japanese customs, the way he folds his large frame into small spaces, the flicker of genuine feeling that occasionally breaks through the professional facade. It’s a masterclass in conveying internal desolation with profound gentleness.
Hikari’s direction is assured and evocative. She captures Tokyo not as a neon-drenched spectacle, but as a landscape of quiet isolation – cramped apartments, lonely parks at dusk, the hushed sterility of agency offices. This visual language underscores the very real emotional void that makes services like the "rental family" agency necessary. The film excels in the gray areas. As Phillip graduates from playing a cheerful fake uncle at a wedding to the far more demanding, emotionally fraught role of surrogate father to a young girl (a relationship handled with remarkable sensitivity), the stakes become palpably real. The boundaries between performance and genuine care begin to blur, and Hikari navigates this precarious territory with grace, never tipping into melodrama.
The supporting cast provides essential texture. Mari Yamamoto is superb as the agency's pragmatic, slightly cynical handler, a grounding force who nonetheless reveals her own complex relationship with the business of artificial connection. Takehiro Hira provides further contrast as a client whose needs force Phillip into uncomfortable vulnerability. The interactions between Phillip and his "clients" feel organic, making the emotional entanglement that develops feel earned, never forced.
“Rental Family" is a triumph of tone and empathy. Its quiet strength lies in its refusal to judge its characters or the industry it depicts. It poses difficult, beautiful questions: If a rented father provides more consistent love and presence than an absent biological one, is that love any less real? If performing a role fills an emptiness within the performer, is it purely transactional? The film masterfully balances dry, observational humor with moments of genuine, unforced pathos. The cinematography avoids postcard clichés, framing Tokyo with a quiet beauty that serves the story. A subplot involving a legendary, aging actor (Akira Emoto, effortlessly poignant) offers a profound meta-commentary on performance that resonates deeply with Phillip’s journey.
It’s not without minor stumbles. The second act slows slightly as it juggles multiple rental scenarios, momentarily diffusing the focus. And some viewers might find the ending a touch too understated, though its quiet ambiguity feels perfectly in keeping with the film’s meditative, realistic heart.
“Rental Family" is one of 2025's most acclaimed films for good reason. It’s a deeply human story, beautifully observed and exquisitely performed. Brendan Fraser confirms his place as a master of portraying wounded gentleness, and Hikari directs with a compassionate clarity that transforms a peculiar cultural phenomenon into a universal reflection on the roles we play to stave off loneliness and find fleeting moments of belonging. This sweet-natured dramedy lingers long after the credits roll, a gentle reminder of the complex, often performative, dance of human connection. It doesn't offer easy answers, but it asks essential questions with rare tenderness. (Neo, 2026)
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