{"id":132431,"date":"2025-09-09T23:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/132431\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T23:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:58:10","slug":"rental-family-2025-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/132431\/","title":{"rendered":"Rental Family (2025) – Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rental Family, 2025.<\/p>\n

Written and Directed by Hikari.
Starring Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Akira Emoto, and Shannon Gorman.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a><\/p>\n

SYNOPSIS:<\/p>\n

Fraser plays an American actor adrift in Japan, hired by a rental family agency to \u201cperform\u201d roles in the lives of strangers. A father connecting to a daughter he doesn\u2019t know, a second player for a man who just wants to play video games\u2014these are the kinds of lives he intersects with. And yet, in these fleeting performances, something true is revealed. We realize, slowly and devastatingly, that the only real thing in many of these lives might be the lie they\u2019re paying for.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are moments in Rental Family that are straight out of a soap opera\u2014a man appearing out of the blue to tell a young girl he\u2019s her father. Two strangers pretending to elope so one can be with their real lover. These moments don\u2019t just make up the movie. They are the movie. Rental Family speaks to a world with the aching desire to connect but has forgotten how in all ways but Capitalism. Fraser, perfectly cast, gently embodies both sides of that yearning playing an actor who fills these roles and pays for companionship himself. The movie itself is manufactured with its own hypocrisy in mind, \u2018selling emotion\u2019 as one character calls it, but it still feels earned all the same.<\/p>\n

Fraser himself put it tearfully at the screening I attended: Rental Family reflects the \u201cloneliness epidemic\u201d of the modern world. Phillip, the character he plays, doesn\u2019t just get paid to be in other people\u2019s lives\u2014he also pays for companionship himself. One of his closest relationships, heartbreakingly, is with his agent\u2014and it exists entirely over the phone. No handshakes, no eye contact, just a voice on the other end. The actor who rents himself out also rents a companion for his own emptiness, and the only person who knows his real name does not know his real face. In a world where connection is commodified or abstracted into a ringtone, Fraser\u2019s performance captures the aching human cost. What does it mean to matter in someone else\u2019s life, even if only for an afternoon? And more chillingly: what happens if the actor decides to stay after the curtain call?<\/p>\n

\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For his part, Fraser doesn\u2019t power through this film; he glides through it. Towering, physically and emotionally, he is a gentle giant who seems to bend not just under the low door frames of Tokyo apartments but under the invisible weight of other people\u2019s needs. Post-The Whale, we\u2019ve come to see a new Brendan Fraser\u2014one less concerned with physical comedy and more interested in inviting intimacy. If the eyes are windows to the soul, Fraser is Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat\u2014able to channel grief and so many lives, all in a single character.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s matched by Sh\u014dgun star Takehiro Hira, who plays the stoic yet empathetic owner of the rental family agency. Together, they represent two sides of the same coin\u2014one trying to keep the illusion intact, the other wondering what it would feel like if it were real. The newcomer, Shannon Mahina Gorman, avoids the pitfalls of child-actor sentimentality, delivering a grounded performance that smartly does not overdo it and is the film\u2019s greatest strength.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The director known mononymously as Hikari, wisely chooses not to push too hard. In lesser hands, the story of a little girl needing a father figure would have been drowned in saccharine manipulation. But Hikari trusts her actors\u2019 faces as much as their words. She finds emotional resonance not in breakdowns or grand speeches, but the lines unspoken after an actor is dismissed. She directs like a musician in concert not just with the music, but with the production design, and editing, knowing the spaces between the notes are often the most important.<\/p>\n

Alex Somers and J\u00f3nsi, from the band Sigur R\u00f3s provide the film\u2019s score, ethereal and human all at once. It\u2019s not the best use of the latter\u2019s work\u2014that still belongs to Matt Shapiro\u2019s 2008: The Cinescape on YouTube\u2014but it layers scenes without putting it on too thick, offering the fake memories its audience desires. And the remixed version of David Byrne\u2019s Glass, Concrete & Stone used so effectively in the trailer is put to good use in here too.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Much of the film plays like a travelogue: Fraser ducking under door frames, wandering through parks, sitting quietly in convenience stores. All cozy yet comfortably photographed by Takuro Ishizaka. But these moments aren\u2019t filler\u2014they\u2019re the whole movie.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s little time for depth in the screenplay\u2014by design. Each scene cuts in and out like a vignette, allowing us only glimpses of these temporary relationships. But it\u2019s in this fragmentation that Hikari finds something worthwhile. The third act (which I won\u2019t spoil) delivers a predictable yet punchy emotional payoff, using the very limitations of its setup as a narrative strength.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rental Family is one of the best films of the year and barring The Mummy and its sequel, this is the best film of Brendan Fraser\u2019s career. A warm hug of a movie for people who have forgotten what a hug feels like.<\/p>\n

For a film about selling emotion the story does pack together a little too neatly\u2014 the resulting impact ephemeral or too restrained for some\u2014but it is an easy recommendation to anyone. It doesn\u2019t ask us to believe in miracles, only in moments. And in a world increasingly starved for connection, maybe that\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n

Flickering Myth Rating \u2013 Film: \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \/ Movie: \u2605 \u2605 \u2605 \u2605<\/p>\n

Will Hume \u2013 Follow me on Instagram<\/a>, Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n