@Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Phillip Vandarploeug is a husky American expat residing in a Tokyo apartment that qualifies as small, even by local standards. He ekes out a subsistence living working the absolute lowest acting jobs on the dramatic food chain. If anyone understands life’s disappointments, it would be him. Consequently, he quickly displays the kind of sensitivity his IRL role-playing firm’s clients appreciate. However, his approach might be a little too “method” in Japanese filmmaker Hikari’s Japanese-American co-production Rental Family, which opens this Friday in theaters.
Family rental services have cinematic precedent. Such real-life businesses were featured in Werner Herzog’s Family Romance LLC and played a more sinister role in Sion Sono’s Noriko’s Dinner Table. Generally speaking, Hikari (a.k.a. Mitsuyo Miyazaki) and co-screenwriter Stephen Blahut strive to depict the family rental industry in a realistic, “dramedic” manner.
Initially, Shinji Tada hired Vandarploeug to portray “Sad American,” a role he was born to play, at the fantasy funeral his company arranged for a still-living client. However, Tada’s bread-and-butter are so-called “apologies,” in which Aiko Nakajima pretends to be a contrite mistress, who duly confesses to seducing the lying clients, once their wives realized they have been cheating. It is scummy, but lucrative work.
@Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Vandarploeug gets very different assignments, two of which require long-term commitments. For his first gig, single-mother Hitomi Kawasaki hires him to pretend to be her daughter Mia’s absentee American father, so they can fake the kind of family-stability an elite private elementary school requires. Awkwardly, for the sake of authenticity, Mia will believe his masquerade is the truth.
Concurrently, Vandarploeug also assumes the guise of a film magazine writer researching an in-depth profile on Kikuo Hasegawa, a veteran actor and director battling dementia. The “Sad American” feels a natural affinity for this gig, because he already knew Hasegawa’s work quite well. Yet, his role-playing for the Kawasaki family really hits home hard for Vandarploeug, because his father similarly abandoned him at an early age. Of course, Tada and Nakajima constantly insist Vandarploeug should never allow himself to get emotionally involved with his clients, but he just can’t help it.
Brendan Fraser is perfectly cast as Vandarploeug, because he can smoothly shift between light comedy and quiet sadness. Obviously, he also sticks out like a sore thumb in Tokyo, but Fraser nicely conveys his character’s resulting self-consciousness.
@Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Fraser also develops terrific chemistry with Mari Yamamoto, who evolves from his harshest workplace critic into an unlikely confidant. Yamamoto is tough, but touching as Nakajima, who genuinely believes in the value her services, even though she often endures the worst in people, thanks to her frequent apology assignments.
Young Shannon Mahina Gorman convincingly portrays Mia’s intelligence as well as her understandably neurotic trust issues. Frankly, it is one of the year’s more impressive performances from a child-thesp. On the other side of the maturity spectrum, character actor Akira Emoto (recognizable from Shin Godzilla, the Japanese remake of Unforgiven, and literally hundreds of other films and TV roles) poignantly portrays the cruel nature of dementia as Hasegawa, whose moments of sly lucidity are invariably followed by a painful descent into confusion. Accordingly, they make it easy to understand why Vandarploeug has such trouble maintaining his professional boundaries.
Hikari and Blahunt treat their characters’ dilemmas with all due seriousness, but they never allow the tone to become overly dour or fatalistic. Somehow, the film maintains a lively energy and an upbeat mood. Rental Family also serves as an enticing advertisement for Japanese tourism. Even though many characters struggle with loneliness and melancholy, Takuro Ishizaka’s bright and sunny cinematography consistently presents Japan as a clean, well-kept, and welcoming country.
While the gentle humor is pleasant, the humanist themes of friendship and family (especially those assembled by choice) truly envelope the audience like a warm blanket. Indeed, the bittersweet material perfectly suits the winning ensemble. Highly recommended, Rental Family opens this Friday (11/21) in theaters.
@Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Grade: A-
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Here’s the trailer of the film.