Brendan Fraser leads a new drama that has been criticised as "glib, silly and pointless" by critics, following its release in Australia and ahead of its UK debut.
A Questionable Concept in Tokyo
The film, titled Rental Family and directed by Japanese actor-turned-filmmaker Hikari, features Fraser as Phillip, a hapless American actor stranded in Tokyo. Having originally travelled to Japan to shoot a whimsical toothpaste advertisement, Phillip finds himself without the means or desire to return home.
His fortunes appear to change when he stumbles upon employment with a unique Tokyo-based firm. The company offers bespoke therapeutic role-play services, a concept that actually exists in Japan. Clients can hire actors to impersonate absent family members, deceased loved ones, or even difficult colleagues for cathartic conversations or confrontations.
Phillip, who harbours his own unresolved trauma from being abandoned by his father as a child, is thrust into two main assignments. First, he must pose as the long-lost father of a young girl to help her single mother secure a place at an elite private school. Secondly, he is hired as a faux journalist to profile an ageing actor, a ruse orchestrated by the man's concerned daughter.
Tonal Troubles and Missed Opportunities
The review argues that the film suffers from a serious tonal problem, attempting to transform its inherently bizarre and potentially dysfunctional premise into feel-good sentimentality. It is described as "bafflingly complacent in its sentimentality and its sheer, fatuous implausibility."
This approach is contrasted with other films that have tackled similar themes. Werner Herzog's 2019 documentary Family Romance, LLC and Yorgos Lanthimos's surreal satire Alps are cited as works that more critically examined the ethical complexities and potential psychological dangers of such commercialised role-play.
Rental Family, however, opts for what the review calls "vacuous platitudes" about everyone playing roles in life, wrapped in a package of "quirky farce." One plotline involves Phillip impersonating a groom in a sham wedding to help a woman deceive her parents, played for comedic effect. The review questions the morality of encouraging such deception and the appropriateness of the light-hearted tone.
An Emotional and Ethical Disconnect
A core criticism focuses on the film's handling of its emotional stakes. The review highlights the significant ethical dilemma of Phillip pretending to be a little girl's real father, an act that risks profound emotional harm. While the film shows him later apologising to the child, it notably omits any such reckoning with the elderly actor he also deceived.
This selective morality contributes to the assessment that the film is "fundamentally wrong-headed" and "smug." Rather than probing the loneliness and social pressures that drive demand for rental services, or the emotional cost for the actors providing them, the film is accused of settling for a superficial, saccharine resolution.
Rental Family is currently showing in Australian cinemas and will be released in UK and Irish cinemas from 16 January.
