The Brenaissance continues apace! Having made his big-screen comeback to Oscar winning acclaim with Darren Aronofsky's The Whale in 2022, Brendan Fr
The Brenaissance continues apace! Having made his big-screen comeback to Oscar winning acclaim with Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale in 2022, Brendan Fraser has shone in Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon, rounded out a winning run as Doom Patrol‘s Cliff Steele, and booked gigs starring as Dwight D. Eisenhower in upcoming D-Day thriller Pressure and appearing opposite Al Pacino in Barry Levinson’s Assassination. And Fraser’s next movie, Hikari directed comedy drama Rental Family, looks set to be another winner for The Mummy man. Check out the trailer below;
Now there’s a hook if ever we saw one. We’ve seen Fraser act in family dramas, and we’ve seen Fraser act in comedies, but here we’re getting Fraser, in a comedy, playing an actor in family dramas — but, well, actual other families’ dramas. Yes, it looks like Beef director Hikari is about to pull off a sort-of reverse-Truman Show as Fraser’s down-on-his-luck actor becomes embroiled in the strange world of surrogate families. Here’s the synopsis: “Set against modern-day Tokyo, Rental Family follows an American actor (Fraser) who struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese ‘rental family’ agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. Confronting the moral complexities of his work, he rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the quiet beauty of human connection.”
Co-starring Pachinko‘s Mari Yamamoto, Shōgun‘s Takehiro Hira, and Shin Godzilla‘s Akira Emoto, Hikari’s movie has no shortage of acting talent to carry its quirky concept, and for Brendan Fraser this is a prime opportunity to cross that tightrope between comedy and drama, punchlines and pathos, that the resurgent 90s star has always walked so indelibly. Consider us locked in and seated for Rental Family, even if we do have to wait until January 2026 to be able to see it. Maybe while we wait we can just hire Brendan Fraser to play the role of ‘Empire’s Best Friend’ at Empire HQ? If you’re reading this Brendan, give us a call…
COMMENTS