Rental Family

Forging personal connections can be difficult enough these days, even in casual circumstances. But what happens when we require someone to play a vital role for a pressing need and no one is available to stand in? Thats when it may be time to place a call to Rental Family, a Tokyo-based company that provides individuals to step in and fill the missing link. Its also a perfect opportunity to provide work for unemployed actors, giving them a chance to ply their trade and gain experience at broadening the range of their craft while helping out others in times of need. Such is the case for Phillip Vandarploeg (Brendan Fraser), a largely unsuccessful American actor who moved to Japan years ago to make a cheesy toothpaste commercial but has since...

I can't wait to watch this movie. It says its already out November 20th but I still can't watch it on here or any server. Will it br up soon?

Good vibes, missed opportunities

Rental Family delivers sweetness with Brendan Fraser charm, but stumbles in its depths

Fraser remains the MVPhis gentle giant presence and expressive vulnerability carry this film through its overly sentimental beats. Critics are right that his performance is quietly devastating, conveying awkward tenderness as he navigates Tokyo's morally murky rental family industry. The elderly client's storyline genuinely tugs at the heartstrings, offering the film's most emotionally resonant moments.

However, strip away Fraser and the film can't escape its overly sentimental tones with characters that have no depth. The concept itself is fascinating yet deeply uncomfortablethe practice raises all sorts of q...

My, how Brendan Fraser has come on since his beefcake gardener days of Gods and Monsters (1998). Move on a quarter of a century and hes Philip. A struggling American actor trying to make a living in Japan. Hes fluent, but thus far his success has been limited to a toothpaste advertising campaign that saw him in a cape with pearly white teeth. He makes ends meet by doing the ultimate in anonymous extras work. He turns up, unrehearsed, at events - like funerals - and gets paid what amounts to appearance money for looking sad! Its at one of those gatherings that he meets Tada (Takehiro Hira) who runs a business along these lines, and who sees some potential in Philip. What now ensues sees him carry out a variety of jobs, with varying degrees o...