When I heard the first movie Brendan Fraser chose to do after winning the Best Actor Oscar for The
When I heard the first movie Brendan Fraser chose to do after winning the Best Actor Oscar for The Whale was a movie called Rental Family, I thought that with that title he was going back to the kind of amusing but gimmicky studio comedies he sometimes made earlier in his career. Not so.
This sweet and lyrical movie, which is having its world premiere tonight at the Toronto Film Festival, is based on real life in Japan, where since the 1980s 300 companies specializing in renting out people on an hourly rate have been blossoming for purposes of all sorts of companionship needs. This can range from needing someone to go to a wedding you don’t want to attend alone to hiring a boyfriend to introduce to your parents or just having someone to sleep in the other room so the house isn’t so lonely after a loved one dies. That is what Japanese writer-director Hikari had in mind when she started researching the “rental family” phenomenon, particularly prevalent in Japan, where loneliness is an increasing problem.
Fraser plays Phillip Vandarbleog, a struggling actor who moved to Japan seven years earlier after getting a job in a superhero toothpaste commercial. The acting gigs since have been few, so when he stumbles upon a rental family agency that hires actors for these special gigs to fill a void in people’s lives, he tries it out. His first taste was when his agent got him a job as a mourner at a counterfeit funeral where the loved ones pass by a coffin with a man, still very much alive, who just wants to hear nice things said about him before its too overdue.
This leads to his meeting with the rental agency and his first job with them. Phillip becomes a groom at a wedding where the bride simply was afraid to tell her parents who she was really with romantically. She “marries” Phillip, telling the family they would be moving to America. We soon see her real love is another woman.
As Phillip settles into the agency run by Tada (Shōgun star Takehiro Hira), there is friction among the others, notably Aiko (Mari Yamamoto), who doesn’t always see eye to eye with the up-to-date member of the team and in fact gets into quite the argument with him. Nevertheless, they all have a job to do. Phillip soon finds himself in a real situation when he is hired by a mother (Shino Shinozaki) to act as the father of 11-year-old Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), whose real dad is long out of the picture. But in order to get her into the private school Mom wants her to attend, she needs two parents to show a true family unit in order to pass the test so she is out to convince her daughter this really is Dad. Mia isn’t on board at first but eventually will find the father figure in Phillip she never had before.
Another storyline has the daughter of a well-known actor, Kikuo Hasegawa (veteran star Akira Emoto), whose father is starting to lose his memory. Phillip is hired by here to impersonate a journalist interviewing him so he can have some companionship at this time. It gets a bit more complicated when Kikuo asks his up-to-date friend to accompany him to his home town for reasons he won’t disclose, something his daughter won’t do.
This is a gentle film, the kind of lower-key humane comedy we don’t see often these days. Its timing is perfect in a divided world where social media for many has replaced basic one-on-one human connection, where the basic act of having someone to talk to in person, to share time with, isn’t as uncomplicated as it once was. The idea of “renting” a stranger might sound absurd, but in Hakari’s lovely little movie it just could start a trend everywhere. Plus, actors could employ the work!
Fraser is soulful and understated in a pretty portrayal of a man taking a job that turns out to be a life-affirming experience he doesn’t expect. Hira is the embodiment of an agency owner trying to keep his business together, while Yamamoto is engaging, especially when at odds with her up-to-date colleague. Gorman, in her film debut, is a real firecracker, and Emoto, a legendary star, still can steal scenes well into his 70s. The largely Japanese ensemble is refreshing to see in a very special comedy that the entire family will enjoy. Arigata, Hikari.
Producers are Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, Hikari and Shin Yamaguchi
Title: Rental Family
Festival: Toronto (Special Presentations)
Distributor: Searchlight Pictures
Release date: November 21, 2025
Director: Hikari
Screenwriters: Hikari and Stephen Blahut
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, Shino Shinozaki
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 1 hr 43 mins
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