What do you do when you need someone to be a mourner, or a groom, or a father, or a companion? What if you need someone to apologize to a spouse? Why not hire an actor to fill the role? That is the basis of Hikari’s film, Rental Family.
Phillip Vandarpleog (Brendan Frasier) is a middle-aged American actor who’s been in Japan for seven years. He gets by with small roles and work in commercials. Even in the midst of Tokyo, he is essentially alone. When he meets the owner of a company called Rental Family, he is offered a job (as “token white guy”) to act as people who fill in for others.
There are over 300 such companies in Japan, going back to the 1980s. It is a commentary on how often people feel there is something missing from their lives. Such businesses provide an emotional connection that people need in some way. As his boss tells Phillip, it is “a chance to play roles with real meaning.”
Brendan Fraser in RENTAL FAMILY. Photo by James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures. © 2025 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
At first, Phillip has difficulty with the ethics. He has been hired to be the groom at a faux wedding. He almost pulls out because he knows such ceremonies have important meaning. He feels like he’s committing fraud rather than just playing a role. He soon learns that what he is doing is adding something important to other people’s lives. He’ll also discover that it is adding to his own emotional life as well.
The first of the main assignments we see him carrying out is to be a father to Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman). She’s been raised by a single-mother, believing her father abandoned her. Her mother needs to show a two-parent family. To make sure Mia doesn’t give it away, he must make her believe he really is her father. At first, she is justifiably hostile, but over time a deepening bond grows between them. Will Phillip be able to walk away when the assignment is done?
Shannon Gorman and Brendan Fraser in RENTAL FAMILY. Photo by James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures. © 2025 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
We also see him build a bond with Kikuo (Akira Emoto), an aging actor who is losing his memory. His daughter hires Phillip to play a journalist working on a story to provide companionship for him. In time, Kikuo asks Phillip to do something his daughter would not approve of.
I went into the film expecting it to be like one of the Progressive Insurance commercials featuring backup quarterbacks. I discovered that the film is far deeper than that. It reminded me more of the film Departures (highly recommended, if you’ve not seen it). Both films are stories about someone who finds a deep meaning for others and for themselves in the jobs they have stumbled into.
This is a film with various levels of understanding. The ethics of this can be questionable. For example, one of his coworkers often serves as a stand-in for a mistress to apologize to a man’s wife. The dishonesty of such a fake apology becomes too much for her. And there is something basically dishonest about these situations. An important, but small scene involves Phillip talking about his work with a call girl he “dates”. She compares what he is doing with what she does, but it is not judgmental in any way. She shows him that they are both providing services that give people an important connection.
There is also a spiritual side to this story. In a scene with Kikuo, Phillip visits a shrine. In conversation, Kikuo and Phillip talk about religion. Phillip quit praying long ago. Kikuo tells him, “God exists in everything. God exists in us.” In this shrine exists a treasure behind a curtain. Phillip chooses not to view the treasure, until later, after Kikuo’s death. And his discovery there is an important lesson for him—and for the viewer.
Brendan Fraser and Akira Emoto in RENTAL FAMILY. Photo by James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures. © 2025 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
That spiritual side is where the real meaning of the film lies. The separation between people—the emptiness within lives—even in the midst of a metropolis such as Tokyo is in fact a spiritual problem. The need to be seen, heard, and known by someone is an existential longing that is often buried within us. It may only increase as our loneliness seems to be covered by the crowds around us. We may ponder what role we would like to hire someone to fill in our lives. Another way of asking this is what role can we play in someone else’s life?
Rental Family available in theaters.
Photos courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
