By George & Josh Bate
The renaissance of Brendan Fraser continues as the Academy Award winning actor delivers a powerful and emotionally nuanced performance in Rental Family, a lovely film that ranks among the best movies of the year.
Rental Family sees Fraser play Phillip Vandarploeug, an American actor living in Tokyo. After struggling to secure roles, Phillip starts working for a Japanese rental family service, which tasks with playing various stand-in roles in people’s lives. As he navigates these roles, in particular pretending to be the father of a young girl and a journalist interviewing a retired actor, Phillip develops surprising connections and happiness, possibly at the detriment of his job.
Rental family services may be known to people familiar with Japanese culture, but, for most, including Fraser’s Phillip character, they’re somewhat of a foreign concept. The idea of paying actors to play a role in your life, such as a friend to play video games with or a cheerleader to encourage you as you play karaoke, lays at the center of Rental Family and serves as a perfect jumping off point for a story that taps into themes of loneliness, community, and found family. From the get-go, Phillip has reservations about being a rental family actor, especially as his job entails he pretend to be the groom to a bride at a wedding in order for the bride to save face with her parents. It’s uncomfortable and comical in equal measure and yet there’s a spark of something quite beautiful that draws Phillip into the role more seriously as he sees the positive impact it can have on clients. Subsequently, the film chronicles the array of roles Phillp undertakes, eventually narrowing in on two in particular that he becomes attached to and that raise questions of the morality of the service he provides.
Although the trajectory of Phillip’s journey across the film is rather easy to forecast, its predictability commendably never detracts from the emotions provoked in the slightest. When we are initially introduced to Phillip, he is clearly lonely and solemn, living in tight quarters as he goes from one measly acting job to the next. Fraser immediately brings a kindness and warmth to Phillip, even as the character clearly struggles with his mood and anxiety. If anyone has ever watched an interview with Fraser, they’ll know that he is one of the most likable actors working today, an attribute he brings to the forefront in resounding fashion here. The details of his past are scant and yet we can’t help but feel bad for him and root for him.
After overcoming some initial discomforts as a rental family service actor, Phillip quickly finds that he is no longer acting as he has developed genuine care for the people he works with. One of the two key connections Phillip builds, which is with a young girl named Mia (played by Shannon Mahina Gorman), develops somewhat quickly and could have felt a bit more earned, but Fraser’s effortless likability and fish-out-of-water charm ensures that the relationship ultimately feels genuine. The relationship with retired actor Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), meanwhile, circles in the periphery of Phillip’s bond with Mia before slowly creeping up on Phillip and, in turn, the audience to unexpectedly become the heart of the film. The film doesn’t leave Phillp’s relationship with Mia behind, however, as it still delivers a (mostly) satisfying, albeit brisk, conclusion to the arc. But the real emotional gut-punch comes from scenes shared with Fraser and Emoto, the latter of whom is phenomenal as a man desperate to retain certain happy memories as his mind withers away with age.
Rental Family may be far from the first film to toy with the idea of a lonely person finding unexpected connection, and the emotions it elicits are admittedly a tad straightforward. However, the film is crafted with such care and emotional intelligence from director, co-writer, and producer Hikari that simplicity and lack of novelty quickly become afterthoughts. As of the writing of this review, not a single movie released in 2025 has moved us emotionally to the degree that Rental Family did. There are multiple moments, especially in the final act, that had us tearing up, something that, if you know us, isn’t easy to do.
These emotions are testament to the precision of storytelling Hikari employs and the strength of Fraser’s performance. Fraser has already shown he has impressive dramatic acting chops with his Academy Award winning turn in The Whale, but Rental Family demands a more nuanced performance from the actor. Fraser conveys an incredible depth and breadth of emotion in the film, often without dialogue to back it up. Intelligently, Hikari doesn’t overinsert himself in the film; rather, he lets the camera sit with Fraser and intimately follow him, providing the audience with a front row seat to the emotions Phillip feels and the connections he builds.
All of this results in a lovely, gentle film absent of any cynicism or ill-intention. In less capable hands, this story may have played too saccharine, but Hikari and Fraser, backed by a terrific score from Jónsi and Alex Somers, ensure the film unwaveringly retains a sense of genuine warmth.
VERDICT: 9/10
The renaissance of Brendan Fraser continues with Rental Family, a lovely and deeply moving film that ranks among the very best of 2025. Although a tale of a lonely man developing unexpected connections is far from novel, filmmaker Hikari handles his story and characters with such delicacy and authenticity that it is difficult to not get wrapped up in the swelling emotions of Fraser’s character’s journey. The trajectory of this journey may be easy to forecast, but its predictability doesn’t detract from these emotions in the slightest. This is largely due to a superb performance from Brendan Fraser, who follows his Academy Award-winning role in The Whale with a more emotionally nuanced yet similarly powerful turn. Akira Emoto, meanwhile, excels in a pivotal supporting role that, when coupled with Fraser’s performance, gives Rental Family its beating heart. Much like the strong, tear-inducing emotions that sneak up on you while watching it, Rental Family sneaks up to the apex of our favorite movies of the year and will deliver audiences a much-needed uplifting tale of finding connection in the most unexpected of places.