{"id":13496,"date":"2025-11-21T15:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T20:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13496"},"modified":"2025-12-23T17:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T22:46:09","slug":"rental-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/11\/21\/rental-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Rental Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Rental Family<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Searchlight\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (thematic elements, some strong language, suggestive material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Hikari\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Hikari and Stephen Blahut\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jonsi and Alex Somers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Takuro Ishizaka\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 21, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, Shino Shinozaki, Kimura Bun, Tamae Ando, Misato Morita, Sei Matobu, Yuka Itaya, Hinata Kaizu.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Brendan Fraser is one of the more interesting actors out there. It\u2019s his versatility, his willingness to try his hand at different types of roles be it the goofball (Encino Man, George of the Jungle), action hero (the Mummy trilogy) or dramatic lead (School Ties, Gods and Monsters). He does it all and does it very well.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Brendan earned an Oscar for his heartbreaking performance as a morbidly obese recluse in The Whale. He could possibly be up for another for his role in Rental Family<\/strong>, a gentle melancholic dramedy from Japanese writer-director Hikari (37 Seconds). He delivers another knockout performance, this time as an American actor living in Japan. You might say he\u2019s spiritual kin to Bill Murray\u2019s character in Sofia Coppola\u2019s wonderful Lost in Translation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Phillip Vandarploeug struggles to find work in his profession. His most prominent role to date is starring in a silly toothpaste commercial. He\u2019s been living in Japan for seven years and still feels like an outsider. A gig as a \u201csad American\u201d at a fake funeral leads him to a rental family service, an outfit that provides stand-ins for whatever clients need be it a romantic partner, best friend or estranged family member. Although he doesn\u2019t fully understand or appreciate what they do, Phillip signs on with them. It\u2019s not like he\u2019s weighing other job offers.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The actor\u2019s first gig is playing the Canadian groom at a wedding for a woman who doesn\u2019t want to shame her family for being true to herself. After that, Phillip takes on two major clients. One is Kikuo Hasegawa (Emoto, Shoplifters), a retired and all but forgotten actor suffering from Alzheimer\u2019s. Phillip plays a journalist doing a piece about his long career. The other is Mia (Gorman), an 11YO girl whose mother (Shinozaki) hires him to play the father she\u2019s never met. It\u2019s a temporary gig; she just needs his help getting the girl into a prestigious school.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Even though he\u2019s not supposed to, Phillip becomes attached to both. He starts to care. This is especially true with Mia who bonds with him after some initial resistance. This is where Rental Family<\/strong> is at its strongest. At its heart, the film is about loneliness and the desire for human connection. The American is alone in a country still foreign to him even though he\u2019s been there long enough to become fluent in the spoken language. Most nights, he sits alone in his depressing apartment watching his neighbors through their windows. The physical distance between Phillip and his neighbors matches his emotional distance from others.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Phillip isn\u2019t the only lonely soul in Rental Family<\/strong>. Everybody is to some extent. Company owner Shinji (Hira, Gran Turismo) goes home every night to a wife and son who aren\u2019t what they seem. Female colleague Aiko (Yamamoto, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters) does the more challenging jobs like playing the mistresses of cheating husbands, apologizing to the wives for causing their spouses\u2019 infidelity. The company\u2019s other employee (Bun, The Naked Director) seemingly has no life outside the workplace. The feeling of disconnect among the characters is both sad and palpable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Rental Family<\/strong> is excellent. It might even make my Top 10 list at year\u2019s end. Alas, it\u2019s not perfect. There\u2019s a development late in the game that feels out of step with the rest of the movie. Phillip runs into some legal trouble regarding one of the clients. What his co-workers do to get him out of it is something out of a silly comedy movie. Thankfully, Rental Family<\/strong> falls right back into step once the matter is resolved. It doesn\u2019t ruin the movie; it just feels noticeably out of place.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Brendan isn\u2019t the only one who turns in a powerhouse performance. Newcomer Gorman, in her first role ever, makes an astonishing debut as Mia, a somewhat serious kid who gradually lets down her guard as she gets to know \u201cher father\u201d. As an actress, she\u2019s open to anything, a trait that eludes some adults. She imbues her character with strength and vulnerability never once overplaying the \u201ccute kid\u201d card. Yamamoto is also terrific as Aiko, the colleague who initially regards Phillip as a gaijin<\/em>. She puts up a good front, but clearly suffers from self-esteem issues. She hits all the right character beats. Hira is equally great as the boss who sees his clients as cases rather than people. He keeps warning Phillip not to let it get personal. He too is in for an emotional awakening.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Shot in soft colors by cinematographer Takuro Ishizaka, Rental Family <\/strong>is both visually and emotionally beautiful. It\u2019s sad at times, but never morose. It\u2019s even humorous at times. That toothpaste commercial is really something. Hikari, who co-wrote the screenplay with Stephen Blahut, makes us care about the characters. It\u2019s brilliant how he keeps his focus on the human characters instead of the clash between Western and Eastern cultures. It comes up a few times, but Rental Family<\/strong> isn\u2019t about that. It\u2019s about lonely people looking to connect in a world that feels more and more disconnected. It\u2019s beautiful and brilliant.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rental Family (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Searchlight\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 110 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (thematic elements, some strong language, suggestive material)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Hikari\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Hikari and Stephen Blahut\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Jonsi and Alex Somers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Takuro Ishizaka\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 21, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, Shino Shinozaki, Kimura Bun, Tamae Ando, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Rental-Family-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C928&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13499,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13496\/revisions\/13499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}