Rental Family (dir. Hikari)

by Jack Martin | Jan 13, 2026

Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 110 mins

UK Distributor: Searchlight Pictures

UK Release Date: 16 January 2026

WHO’S IN RENTAL FAMILY?

Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, Shino Shinozaki

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Hikari (director, writer, producer), Stephen Blahut (writer), Julia Lebedev, Eddie Vaisman and Shin Yamaguchi (producers), Jon Thor Birgisson and Alex Somers (composers), Takurô Ishizaka (cinematographer), Alan Baumgarten and Thomas A. Krueger (editors)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A struggling actor (Fraser) is hired by an unusual firm in Japan…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON RENTAL FAMILY?

While Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale ended up dividing most critics and audiences, everyone still came to the same conclusion: man, it’s great to see Brendan Fraser working again. The Academy certainly agreed, awarding him the Best Actor Oscar for his role in the film, giving the beloved star of movies like The Mummy, George of the Jungle, Looney Tunes: Back in Action and Encino Man a whole new lease of life on the screen, along with a fresh revitalisation of the naturally likeable actor’s endearing screen persona.

It’s a persona that Rental Family, from filmmaker Hikari, seems almost tailor-made for. Much like how its lead actor often comes across in movies and in interviews, the film is filled with heartwarming joy and spreads its optimistic love across every frame, with no room left for cynicism on its gentle and sweet canvas. It’s delightful stuff, so much so that one can envision this existing in the same universe as the Paddington movies, for their shared warmth and universal charm.

Fraser plays Phillip Vandarploeug, an American actor living in a small and lonely apartment in Tokyo, where he struggles to book roles after his initial success with a popular (and very Japanese) toothpaste commercial. One day, he secures an usual gig where he attends a man’s funeral as a “sad American”; as it turns out, the man is alive, and the whole event is a staged platform for other actors and personal well-wishers to deliver eulogies that give him a newfound sense of purpose. The event is one of many that has been orchestrated by the Rental Family agency and its owner Shinji (Takehiro Hira), who regularly hires actors like Phillip and fellow employees such as Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) to fill various roles for unsuspecting, or sometimes fully aware, clients looking for companionship or closure with their actual absentee figures. Phillip soon finds himself in various scenarios, from posing as a journalist interviewing elderly retired actor Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), to being a father trying to reconnect with a young girl named Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman) in order to help her get into a good school, and he finds himself personally connecting with each one of them in ways that give him and his clients more than they could have ever bargained for.

The seemingly unusual premise isn’t quite as far-fetched in Japan, where companies like the one depicted in Rental Family, as well as Werner Herzog’s fairly recent film Family Romance, LLC (which I reviewed a few years ago), actually do exist for a wide variety of services, whether it be filling in a vital role on a person’s wedding day or just spending time with somebody while they play video games in their home. Hikari, like Herzog before her, approaches it with a fine delicacy that doesn’t judge anyone for using such services, nor does it anyone who volunteers to perform them, with Fraser’s Phillip slowly beginning to recognise the goodness that can come from such a job which ends up being more rewarding than most of the ones he’s offered. Throughout, you see him bringing a sincere part of himself to each character he portrays, which helps him to form genuine bonds with his clients as well as other people working for the agency, and Fraser is great at really making each persona that his Phillip inhabits feel as authentically lovable as the actor himself, while also keeping Phillip’s own emotional arc on a steady path towards a satisfactory conclusion.

Interestingly, Hikari also goes so far as to show some of the downsides to this particular business. As good as their intentions may be, Phillip and others are effectively lying to people about their true selves and taking advantage of certain people’s trust in order to fulfil their roles, sometimes even putting themselves in real danger of actual harm. Yamamoto’s Aika, for instance, gets saddled with a gig where she has to pretend to be the mistress of a cheating husband and is paraded in front of his wife during a scene that is always on the verge of turning ugly at the wrong moment. The director offers a fairly balanced view of the business that shows both its ups and downs, with certain characters realising the emotional harm they may be enabling through their deceit and taking active steps to right some of the wrongs they’ve been dragged into. This also includes people who quickly catch on to Phillip and others, but rather than going through the conventional motions of a “liar-revealed” scenario, they take the opportunity to realise the true cause of the situation, which more often than not lies with the person who actually hired them.

What Rental Family may lack in major stakes, it more than makes up for with its sincere sense of heart that offers a genuinely warm time at the movies. Hikari captures the whimsical nature of Tokyo through intimate and warmly-lit cinematography by Takurô Ishizaka that makes the city and its vastly changing climate feel so moving in its natural lyricism, while the performers – not just Fraser but also the likes of Takehiro Hira, Japanese veteran Akira Emoto and impressive newcomer Shannon Mahina Gorman – perfectly encapsulate the sweet yet also smart writing that allows viewers greater insight into what makes these characters tick. It’s all enough for you to want to spend more time in this place with these people, and go with them on even more of these emotional adventures that enrichen their personal arcs and make them feel like real people that you can’t help but consider a part of your own rental family.

Between this wonderful outing and his Oscar-winning turn in The Whale, Brendan Fraser’s star has never shone brighter. May it continue to shine, and spread its goodness to everything he does going forward.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Rental Family is a genuinely heartwarming drama that evenly explores the ins and outs of its central service, and thanks to Hikari’s warm filmmaking and a cast of empathetic characters led by an adorable Brendan Fraser, it overcomes its slight lack of stakes by forming a true crowd-pleaser with the right amount of depth and charm.