Rental Family is far from the first fish-out-of-water movie set in Japan, but it’s the first I’ve seen that involves real people hiring actors to play a specific, brief role in their lives.
It’s close to the acclaimed show The Rehearsal, though for a different purpose: Instead of practicing for difficult moments, the people in Rental Family hire actors to pretend they are real people.
For example, one story that gets little screentime in the movie involves a person who has isolated themselves from the world. Presumably, someone in their family hires Brendan Fraser to be his friend and encourage him to get out of the house.
This is where the movie asks some tough questions: If you’re trying to help someone in your life, do you tell them that the person is an actor? If you would have asked me that before the movie, I would have said of course: Be truthful and transparent. But I now think it might vary greatly based on the situation.
I really enjoyed the stories, characters, and glimpse into a niche industry in Japan I wasn’t aware of. That said, I need to caution potential viewers in saying that Rental Family may appear as a family movie, but it delves slightly into the sex industry. I’m not sure it needed to go there, but it does show that sex workers are in the same realm as the seemingly less innoncent rental families.
I was trying to think if there’s any situation where I would hire an actor to play a role for a friend or family member. I’m hesitant to say that I would, even with the best of intentions, because it wouldn’t be genuine. What do you think?
What are your thoughts on Rental Family?
I really enjoyed it – it was certainly an interesting insight into Japanese culture – it seemed that much of the demand for this “job” (if you call it that) was due to saving face or satisfying quite strict cultural/societal expectations. I can’t imagine it would be anything I’d ever consider – it seemed dishonest to me.
Certainly an entertaining moving and took some surprising turns, which was at times produced some very comic moments, and sometimes quite sad moments.