Who Wouldn't Want to Hire Brendan Fraser to Give Us a Big Hug?

Being an actor is hard. Phillip (Brendan Fraser) is an American in Tokyo, finding bit parts wherever he can while he waits for his big break. An unexpected gig of a lifetime appears in the form of an offer from Shinji (Takehiro Hiira), the owner of a rental family service. For the right fee, people can hire an actor to play whatever role they so desire in their personal lives: a husband for a fake wedding ceremony, a mistress who can grovelingly apologize to a wronged wife, a best friend to play video games with. Hesitant at first, Phillip soon finds purpose in his new life as a professional stand-in for people’s lives. But his latest job has him worried that the barriers between real and fake have started to blur.

We need to have a name for this trend that happens so frequently with the Oscars: the actor who wins the award then follows it up with a better performance that they should be rewarded for but probably won’t because of recency bias. Consider Jeff Bridges winning Best Actor for Crazy Heart then giving us True Grit the next year. Brendan Fraser’s renaissance has been one of the most wholly joyous pop culture experiences of the 2020s. The goofy leading man we adored so much and who was screwed over by the industry got one hell of a comeback and the chance to prove himself in a way he was seldom given the chance to in his commercial peak. It’s hard to begrudge his Best Actor win, even if The Whale is too bad to function. And it’s unlikely he would have gotten Rental Family without the boost that awards run gave him. But make no mistake: this is the far superior performance (and not just because he gives a huge portion of it in Japanese.)

Fraser is the king of the kindly underdog type whose tenderness draws people to him like a moth to the flame. His post-himbo years of hangdogs and oddballs haven’t diluted his charm but made it seem more, dare I say it, relatable. It makes his Phillip a good fit for the rental family firm’s ethos. Customers want (at least from a man, and their token white dude) comfort, familiarity, a good sturdy shoulder to cry on. For Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), a jaded young girl who does not know that Phillip isn’t her real father, she needs something bigger. Mia’s mother hires Phillip to play the absentee parent in the hopes of putting on a united family front for the elite school board that they’ve applied for. She’s decided that Mia needs to believe that “Kevin” is her true dad, thus putting Phillip in an impossible position. But it’s one he’s good at: he’s a great fake dad.

Fraser’s kind face goes a long way in Rental Family. Another one of Phillip’s jobs is pretending to be a film journalist to interview Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), an old-school former actor whose memory is beginning to fail him. His daughter wants Phillip to help him safely relive his glory days, but the still-wily Kikuo is aiming for a grander adventure. His jobs give him an emotional buoy, a chance to find real connection, although the joys that these new families offer are ones he knows are short-lived. He has it much better than Akio (Mari Yamamoto), who is mostly hired to be slapped around by cuckolded wives whose husbands are too cowardly to reveal their true mistresses to them.

While the Jonsi score does verge into nosehair-pulling levels of sentimentality, Hikari’s script is far more tender and lived-in than its trailer may have suggested. This is a highly endearing film that has hints of Kore-eda, although it lacks the Japanese icon’s layered darkness. None of this is subtle, which may be why some reviews seem cynical about its emotional intent. Yet that thematic foundation of the need for human connection and how liberating it is to give yourself over to it is powerful. Rental Family doesn’t have much time for cynicism, although there are notes of acidity here and there with how the rental family business cannot help but feel parasitic and isolating despite its best intentions. Shinji is a closed book who is working hard to keep up the performance of a job well done, but his loneliness is evident.

While I understand some critics who feel Rental Family is manipulative — aren’t most films? — it also feels like that’s the point because the entire concept of the rental family service is too. The movie doesn’t wholly condemn the practice — Phillip regularly sees a sex worker and portrays that job without judgment or lecturing — but knows that giving something of yourself to the world is a big ask. That seems like a nice lesson we could all take to heart right now. Besides, who among us wouldn’t want to hire Brendan Fraser to give us a big hug?