City Cinema: Rental Family

Drama. PG.
Dir: Hikari, Japan/US, 2025, 110 min.
Brendan Fraser, Paolo Andrea Di Pietro, Takehiro Hira.
In Japanese and English with English subtitles.

Audience Award Winner: Chicago, Hawaii, Heartland, Woodstock, and Middleburg Film Festivals.

“Brendan Fraser delivers a superlative performance in Rental Family, a dramedy that proves a charming surprise balancing poignancy and humor with rare delicacy…  At the story’s beginning, Philip [an actor] is struggling after living in Tokyo for seven years… He’s more than willing to accept an unspecified gig for which he’s only told by his agent that he’ll be playing a ‘sad American.’… Philip has been hired by the ‘Rental Family’ agency that specializes in providing actors to deliver ‘specialized performances’ in personal role-play situations… Impressed by Philip’s suitably somber performance, the agency’s owner offers him a permanent job… Philip’s next assignments prove challenging because he can’t separate his feelings from his professional obligations. In one case, he plays a journalist pretending to interview a legendary Japanese actor because his daughter doesn’t want him to feel forgotten. In the other, he plays the American father of an 11-year-old girl, Mia, whose single mother is desperate to get her enrolled in a prestigious private school… Philip’s tender relationship with Mia… proves the story’s most moving element. But Rental Family also wittily explores the manner in which we all role-play in our lives to varying degrees… Fraser’s superbly nuanced and expressive performance proves key to the film’s power, and he’s well matched by excellent supporting players.” —Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter