Rental Family review – satisfaction guaranteed with Brendan Fraser

In 2022’s harrowing character study The Whale, Brendan Fraser plays a reclusive and morbidly obese college professor obsessed with meatball sub sandwiches, gay pornography and the symbolism of Moby-Dick. Despite being larded in heavy physical prosthetics, Fraser’s tortured but affecting performance saw The Mummy star harpoon his own career white whale: a Best Actor Oscar. 

It felt like a heartwarming comeback story for a strapping yet acutely sensitive screen presence who had been exploited and then squandered by an indifferent Hollywood machine. Surely such a big win would trigger a true Brenaissance?

A brief cameo as a blowhard lawyer for Martin Scorsese in Killers of the Flower Moon felt like a promising amuse-bouche. Sadly we’ll never know if Fraser was any good as a pyromaniac supervillain in Batgirl as that movie was torpedoed for tax write-off purposes during post-production. 

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It has taken a few years, then, but Rental Family feels like the true post-Oscar victory lap, gifting Fraser a leading role attuned to his talents. We are in contemporary Tokyo where he is politely towering over bustling commuters as Phillip Vanderploeg, a jobbing actor who has been picking up local bit parts and commercials for the past seven years. Creditably, Phillip has made the effort to learn Japanese but seems isolated from the wider world. 

A last-minute job playing a “sad American” at a traditional funeral brings Phillip into the orbit of a businessman called Shinji (Takehiro Hira, rather more cuddly here than his vengeful lord in streaming hit Shogun). Shinji runs a human rental agency designed to plug the emotional gaps in the lives of his clients; he claims that he is providing a vital service in a society where there remains a stigma around seeking therapy. He offers Phillip a job. The pay rate is certainly appealing and, as Shinji explains, they need “a token white guy”.  

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At one end of the scale, that could mean Phillip being a plus-one for a corporate karaoke session or playing video games with a lonely middle-aged dude. But his first proper gig feels much more emotionally fraught: pretending to be the groom in a full-blown marriage ceremony to allow a young woman to mollify and then escape her conventional parents.  

The inherent deception involved could be a stumbling block to your enjoyment, or even acceptance, of this nominally feelgood film; it’s not entirely clear how much director and co-writer Mitsuyo Miyazaki (credited professionally as Hikari) has fictionalised the scope of Japanese rental services.

When Phillip is hired to play the long-lost American father of young Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), an impressionable girl whose mother is desperate to get her into a desirable school and thinks a fake dad will help, it should really feel like a step too far.  

What makes Rental Family work as well as it does is the low-key way that Phillip – and indeed Fraser himself – approaches his assignments. In an early TV audition scene we witness him laying it on pretty thick to portray a stereotypically tough detective.

But when dealing with real people Phillip never seems to be playing anyone but himself: no crazy accents or big wigs or outrageous props to create a distinctive character. (OK, he adopts a pair of glasses and a pocket square when impersonating a film journalist but everyone knows those guys are clever and debonair). 

Phillip’s sad-eyed empathy, gentleness and genuine longing for connection means he excels at his job. But like a romantic comedy where the whole relationship is built on one initial white lie, it is obvious that someday there will be a reckoning. In rom-coms, those stumbling blocks tend to get ironed out. So is it really so bad to wish the same might happen here? 

With its uplifting score and humanistic streak, Rental Family seems happy to steer toward sentimentality and even schmaltz. Perhaps it works best as a metaphor for understanding what people might need in their lives to move on, evolve or find acceptance.

Or maybe it is one of those movies that secretly instructs you on how best to consume it. Just imagine you are consciously renting Oscar winner Brendan Fraser for a smidge under two hours in order to warm your soul and make you feel something. Satisfaction guaranteed. 

Rental Family is in cinemas from 16 January. 

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