Rental Family – Film Review
by Frank L.

Director – Hikari
Writers – Hikari
Stephen Blahut
Stars – Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto

Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser) is a middle-aged American actor who has lived in Tokyo for several years. He had his Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame fronting up a toothpaste advert, but that was in the now increasingly distant past. From his apartment, he is able to view in the neighbouring block of apartments various individuals and couples carrying on their everyday activities. He is an outsider to such activity.

Apparently, there are in Japan businesses that hire actors to play guests at weddings or other formal events, to act roles as colleagues or partners or whatever as the situation demands. It is in this milieu that Vanderploeg now finds work. This particular outfit is run by an energetic, no-nonsense guy called Shinji ( Takehiro Hira). Initially, his assignments are for relatively minor acts of deception. But then he has two assignments, both of which raise questions of ethical importance. First, he is hired to be a journalist, allegedly writing an article about a formerly well-known actor, Kikuo (Akira Emota), who is starting to lose his faculties. Secondly, he is asked by a single mother (Shino Shinozaki) to act as her husband before a vetting board so as to help her daughter, Mia (Shannon Gorman), obtain entrance to a smart school. Mia is led to believe, with some reluctance, that Vanderploeg is her father, and a bond develops between them. This is an untenable situation, and inevitably reality must come to bear. Hikari manages to steer events so that there is not a cataclysmic disaster, but it is a highly problematic moral premise. It is unsettling to observe.

What emerges is that Vanderploeg understands far more about Japanese culture and traditions than he did before he undertook these deceptive acting roles. For a while, he had become an insider, even if by deceit.

Vanderploeg is a complex character. It is a challenge to create his dynamics as an outsider in Japanese society while at the same time earning his living by deliberate acts of deception. Fraser somehow manages to traverse this quicksand of morality. He is an impressive actor. Gorman is breathtakingly assured as Mia. There are, in addition, some marvellous set pieces, including a cat festival. Additionally, the beauty of the Japanese scenery is on full display. In short, there is much to praise.

However, what lingers and corrodes the film is the moral issue of deliberately deceiving an eleven-year-old. For all the many qualities of the film, what lingers is that deception.