Film Review: Rental Family

Welcome back to the blog readers. If there is one person in the industry that I have come to absolutely love, it would have to be Brendan Fraser. This guy has completely reinvented himself since being wrongly blacklisted from the industry, and it turns out that he had the last laugh when he came back and promptly won a deserved Academy Award. Now, I was curious to see what Fraser would do next, and hearing it would be a project like this had me doubly intrigued. Would the intrigue pay off, or is the Fraser renaissance coming to an end? Stick around to find out.

Rental Family was directed by Mitsuyo Miyazaki (known as Hikari) from a screenplay by Hikari and Stephen Blahut. The film stars Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, and Akira Emoto. In the film, a struggling American actor living in Japan finds himself employed with a company called Rental Family, in which he fills hired roles in the lives of strangers, and finds himself in two roles that change his outlook on life.

I had heard this film was getting a good amount of awards attention coming out of the festival circuit, and the trailer I had seen promised a warm experience that was going to tickle the human experience aspect of our lives. Going into the film, I thought that I would be getting that, but I did not know that this was going to be one of the most heartfelt and moving films I have seen this year. Brendan Fraser gives a performance that only he could give in this role, and the performance of Akira Emoto is just as moving to me. I also loved the subject matter and the themes.

Let us start by talking about the main reason any cinephile would be interested in this film, and that is Brendan Fraser. As I mentioned in the introductory paragraph, Fraser is an Academy Award winner, deservedly winning for his heartbreaking performance in The Whale (2022). But the unique charm that he possesses was perfect for the role of Phillip Vandarploeug. I mentioned the charm that only Fraser has, but he also brings his signature warmness and comfortability to the role, something that makes this role a lot more grounded than anything he has done in the past. This role is the kind of role that makes you want to just hang out and grab a beer with the character and talk about your day. And that is the real magic of the role, and what Fraser is able to bring to the role. I personally think this is one of my favorite performances of 2025 so far, and something that really should get more love than it will at the Academy Awards.

The next performer I need to talk about is Akira Emoto. You would be forgiven if you did not know who Emoto was for two reasons. The first reason is that neither did I before seeing this film, and the second reason is that as a Japanese actor, he primarily does Japanese film. But seeing him take on the role of retired actor Kikuo Hasegawa was something like a revelation to me. The emotional depth that this guy was able to bring to the character left me choked up in a few spots, because Emoto was able to dig deep within his soul and bear it al for the audience. I got choked up, any normal person may cry at the layers Emoto can play. No wonder this guy is a Japanese Academy Award winner, because he can absolutely bring it. Akira, please come act in American films, because your grace is solely needed here.

I want to end this review by talking about the subject matter and the themes that this film tries to get across. One of the ones I really found myself gravitating towards was the idea of grief , and how different people react to the concept of grief. In the study of grief, the Kübler-Ross model, known mainly as the "five stages method," has been used as the benchmark. I subscribe to the model, especially since it has been used to describe other films like Avengers: Endgame (2019), but the idea of replacing grief with artificial emotion is one that is going to divide a lot of people. I love the approach the film takes by trying to show that doing this can be dangerous, and how it emphasizes community over everything.

In conclusion, Rental Family is a heart-warming look into grief and how coping with it can shape even the best of us, anchored by a brilliant Brendan Fraser performance. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.