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In Theaters Now
- 2025
- PG-13
- Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 43 m
- 2025
- PG-13
- Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 43 m
Summary In modern-day Tokyo, an American actor (Brendan Fraser) struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese "rental family" agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. Confronti...
Directed By: Hikari
Written By: Hikari, Stephen Blahut
In Theaters Now
- 2025
- PG-13
- Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 43 m
- 2025
- PG-13
- Searchlight Pictures
- 1 h 43 m
Rental Family
68
6.4
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Summary In modern-day Tokyo, an American actor (Brendan Fraser) struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese "rental family" agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients’ worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality. Confronti...
Directed By: Hikari
Written By: Hikari, Stephen Blahut
Where to Watch
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 30 Critic Reviews
68
77% Positive
23 Reviews
23 Reviews
17% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
7% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 30 Critic Reviews
68
77% Positive
23 Reviews
23 Reviews
17% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
7% Negative
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
Sep 8, 2025
Rental Family is practically poetic in its handling of its themes. It gets to the root of human emotions and how they’re affected by the world around us and the decisions made by others. It’s a heartwarming film that asks thoughtful questions, and I promise you won’t be disappointed by its answers.
Nov 19, 2025
It’s an outstanding, feel-good combination of East and West that depicts Japan's popular "rental family" business – where actors play a client's parent, spouse, sibling or friend at events or in their personal life – while also nimbly exploring loneliness, identity and the importance of found family.
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 28 User Ratings
6.4
68% Positive
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
11% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
21% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 28 User Ratings
6.4
68% Positive
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
11% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
21% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
Dec 3, 2025
100 minutes of joy. Nothing original in the plot, nothing great about the score, nothing illuminating in the cinematography. Just a joyous story told smartly and accessibly. Hikari knows which clichés most need avoiding, and she and Fraser know when to let his face to do the talking.
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Dec 1, 2025
‘You’re gaigin. You’ll never really understand how things work here.” Yes, the cultural context is quite different. You may find yourself working the whole movie to understand the motivations of people who hire Brendan Frasier’s **** the appeal of this film is how the essential things about humanity, transcend cultural differences. That makes it worth your while.
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Sep 6, 2025
[Fraser's] superbly nuanced and expressive performance proves key to the film’s power, and he’s well matched by excellent supporting players.
Sep 7, 2025
Rental Family could have gone deeper, darker, and more boldly into the oddities of the human rental market. But that would be a different film. It seems silly to come down too hard on this good-natured comedy-drama––especially for offering a much more impressive performance than the one that earned Fraser an Oscar.
Sep 6, 2025
It often seems as though Hikari is being pulled toward a prespective that is simply not Japanese enough to provide a true cultural perspective. But, more importantly, Hikari knows how to push enough emotional buttons without the audience sensing they are being manipulated. And, for many, those talents mean Rental Family will lead to genuine tears.
Sep 6, 2025
A movie like Rental Family lives or dies by its tone, and the one Hikari strikes is reflected in the concerned creases of Fraser’s forehead: It’s maudlin and unconvincing, means well but isn’t above manipulating us for the desired emotional outcome.
Sep 10, 2025
The few glimpses we get of the supporting cast suggest a more exploratory film, but these strands only exist to be woven back into Philip’s formulaic journey of self-discovery.
By Alexander Mooney FULL REVIEW
Dec 3, 2025
I wanted this film to be so much more, but with too many storylines and too many characters to juggle for such a short run time, I fear we missed a priceless gem for something that was tarnished by too much. I really like it, but I don't love it.
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Nov 21, 2025
"Rental Family" is a very cloying film that's practically poetic but very formulaic in its handling of its themes. It gets to the root of human emotions and how they’re affected by the world around us and the decisions made by others yet it's too sentimental in storytelling. Philip is an out-of-work American actor living in Japan, struggling to stay afloat. Years after a brush with fame from a single commercial, he drifts from one failed audition to the next. When his agent sends him on a last-minute job requiring him to wear a black suit and be the “sad American,” Philip eagerly accepts, only to discover that he has been hired to pose as a mourner at a funeral for a man who, unsettlingly, is still alive and lying in an open casket. That bizarre assignment becomes Philip’s entry point into a surreal and deeply human world: the Japanese “rental family” industry, where actors are paid to play stand-in roles for clients’ emotional and social needs. As Philip takes on these performances, he begins to form genuine connections that blur the boundary between role-playing and reality, forcing him to question where his character ends and his true self begins. The film unfolds across two central narrative threads. In the first, Philip is hired to impersonate the long-missing father of a young girl, Mia, whose mother hopes that the presence of a “father figure” will help her daughter gain admission to an elite preparatory school. From the outset, Aiko (Mari Yamamoto), a perceptive employee at the agency, warns that Philip lacks the experience to handle such a delicate role. Her skepticism proves both right and wrong as Philip becomes deeply entangled in the family’s emotional world. The second story finds Philip hired to pose as a journalist interviewing legendary filmmaker Kikuo Hasegawa (played with heartbreaking fragility by Akira Emoto), a revered director suffering from dementia. Here, Philip’s challenge shifts from pretending to connect to desperately trying to hold together the fragments of another man’s fading reality. Both stories reflect the same tension: the fragile dance between illusion and authenticity, empathy and exploitation. Writer-director Hikari uses these intertwined tales to explore the human need for connection and the creative, sometimes desperate, ways people seek it in societies where vulnerability remains taboo. In one of the film’s most striking moments, a sex worker tells Philip that they are in the same line of work: “I help people physically; you help them emotionally.” She is right, but unlike her, Philip has not yet learned how to separate his professional roles from his personal longing for belonging yet it feels too obvious so on-the-nose. At the film’s core the only impressive thing here is Brendan Fraser’s quietly devastating performance. Gone is the physical transformation of "The Whale." Instead, Fraser delivers an internal one that is gentle, soulful, and unadorned. His large frame conveys awkward tenderness, while his expressive eyes communicate everything his character cannot say aloud. It is a portrayal of innocence, empathy, and quiet yearning that grounds the film’s surreal premise in aching humanity. He leans into his sweet likable persona and is the movie’s best asset. Hikari is a great filmmaker that made a great film in 2019 "37 Seconds" that was much better written with characters that are more developed and delves deep into their issues but here she resists the temptation to condemn the “rental family” industry, which in reality includes more than 300 agencies across Japan and continues to grow globally. Instead, she offers a compassionate, open-eyed exploration of it. Her message is clear: even relationships born from artificial circumstances can reveal real human truths. Sometimes, family can be the people we find along the way. Ugh! Sorry but that's super manipulative and not always true. "Rental Family" attempts to be a moving, tenderly observed film that is equal parts social commentary and emotional odyssey but it can't escape its overly sentimental tones with characters that have no depth to them. It does however reminds us that the need for connection, no matter how it begins, is what ultimately makes us human but it’s not deep or dark enough to generate the desired effect.
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Nov 21, 2025
Rental families are real agencies in Japan that provide actors to stand-in for a family member or friend. In this case, Brendan Fraser plays an American who’s been living in Tokyo for l7 years without much luck. He starts to work with this group and his first two clients are a young girl who needs a father and an ailing actor who deserves some final respect. Needless to say, his involvement becomes more than a job, which is the crux of the film. Sadly, Hikari has directed with a gentle pace, which means slow and lacking much variety. Even the conflicts are polite and the emotions are restrained. Fraser leans into his sweet persona and he’s the movie’s best asset. This drama attempts to be poetic and heartwarming, but it’s not deep or dark enough to generate the desired effect.
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Production Company
- Knockonwood
- Domo Arigato Productions
- Sight Unseen Pictures
Release Date Nov 21, 2025
Duration 1 h 43 m
Rating PG-13
Awards
Astra Film Awards
• 3 Nominations
Middleburg Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Virginia Film Festival
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
