RENTAL FAMLY

RENTAL FAMILY follows a lonely American actor in Japan whose life is changed positively while working for a strange company that has the actor posing as a young girl’s father, at the mother’s request, and posing as a journalist spending lots of time interviewing an elderly Japanese movie star with onset dementia. RENTAL FAMILY is a funny, touching, joyful, well-acted movie stressing empathy and compassion for others, but it has six strong obscenities, lots of lying and deception, an expression of Buddhist and pantheistic ideas, a scene making light of being a sex worker, and one scene promoting same-sex marriage.

Brendan Fraser gives a standout, appealing performance as the lead. He’s well supported by several talented Japanese actors, plus a charming, beautiful performance by newcomer Shannon Mahina Gorman, who plays the little girl.

The movie opens with a struggling, lonely American actor, Phillip, in Japan (played by Brendan Fraser), accepting an acting job to pose as a “sad American” at a Japanese funeral. He gets there late and is surprised to see the alleged corpse suddenly rise and smile. It turns out that the company, named Rental Family, that hired him, sends actors out to clients to pose as family members or acquaintances. The elderly “dead man” in the assignment had hired the company so he could experience a funeral with his family and friends while he’s still alive.

The owner of the company, Shinji Tada, wants to hire Phillip to do more such jobs, where Phillip would pose as friends, family members, significant others, etc., for clients. “We need a token white guy,” Shinji jokes. However, he’s doubtful whether Phillip would fit, so he interviews him at the company’s small office. When Phillip hears about the company’s full purpose, he doesn’t think he can lie to people in real life about who he is so easily. Phillip takes the job, however, because his acting roles in Japan lately have been few and far between. Also, Shinji explains to him that Japanese people don’t like to discuss their private lives with therapists, so Japan has developed an industry of rental family companies where people can just hire a stranger with whom they can personally share things. Apparently, there are about 300 such companies in Japan providing such services.

The first client Phillip is assigned is a young woman who wants him to pose as the American groom at her wedding. The wedding is for the benefit of her parents. The woman is much younger than Phillip, so he balks at carrying out the assignment the morning of the wedding. However, his co-worker, Aiko, angrily reads him the riot act, and he goes with it. Only after the wedding, when he gets to talk to the bride privately, that Phillip understands why she had to perform a fake wedding for parents.

Having experienced one job, Phillip has a better understanding of what the company does. The next two clients, however, will have an unexpected emotional impact that changes his life.

The first one has the biggest impact. A single mother has hired the company to have Phillip pose as Kevin, the American father of her 11-year-old daughter, Mia. She needs Phillip to appear at a family interview in three weeks for a private school with high standards the mother wants Mia to attend. For three weeks before the interview, Phillip must get to know Mia, but without telling Mia he’s not really her father.

At first, Mia is angry because show’s upset that her father left her and her mother. However, Phillip does a good job establishing a positive connection, and Mia responds strongly to him. The problem is, the mother begins to be concerned that Mia is becoming too attached to “Kevin.” Indeed, at one point, Mia complains that all her mother seems to do is to order her what not to do.

The other job that impacts Phillip is one where the daughter of a famous elderly Japanese actor who’s losing his memory hires Phillip to pose as a journalist who wants to spend lots of time with her father to do an in-depth article about him and his career. The daughter hopes this will show her father that he still matters.

The first act of RENTAL FAMILY shows that Phillip is an isolated, lonely immigrant who has few prospects and no friends. In fact, his only friend seems to be a friendly sex worker who truly appears to enjoy spending time with Phillip. Happily, however, with Phillip’s new job as a rental family actor, he begins to have positive interactions with other people, including his clients and co-workers.

So, RENTAL FAMILY ultimately stresses empathy, kindness and compassion in funny, touching ways. As such, it shows people using these positive values to overcome their loneliness and isolation from other people.

Sadly, however, the movie is marred by some negative, immoral content. For example, it has five strong obscenities, lots of lying and deception, a scene with a sex worker talking to the main character in bed, and a scene promoting same-sex marriage. Also, RENTAL FAMLY shows the elderly Japanese actor going into a small Buddhist temple while Phillip stands respectfully outside. Later, the elderly actor tells Phillip about his Buddhist beliefs, saying he believes God is in every living thing, including every human being. At the end of the movie, a curious Phillip enters a Buddhist temple and peaks behind a mysterious white curtain. What he finds there is a comical image of the old actor’s false pantheistic beliefs that makes Phillip gently laugh. RENTAL FAMILY doesn’t harangue viewers about Buddhism or pantheism. It’s more like a gentle, comical, insightful explanation of it. In fact, a viewer could take the movie’s last scene and offer a strong Christian critique against Buddhism and pantheism.

RENTAL FAMLY has some beautiful uplifting moments and a lovely ending, but they’re sadly unacceptably marred by the movie’s worldview and moral problems.