“Rental Family” is now in theaters, bringing audiences into the story of an actor who is simply hired to play various roles in real peoples’ real lives. Though it might seem odd to some, this is actually based on a very real concept.
Directed by Hikari, “Rental Family” centers on Phillip Vandarpleog (Brendan Fraser), an American actor who’s been living in Tokyo for seven years. He found mild fame due to starring in a goofy toothpaste commercial, but has been struggling to find steady work ever since. That is, until he’s hired by Rental Family Inc.
With this company, Phillip is hired as the “token white guy” to play various roles in actual people’s lives. And yes, this is an actual service offered in Japan. According to star Brendan Fraser, the writers of the film stumbled upon it online.
“[Hikari] wrote this during the pandemic and, with her writing partner Stephen Blahut, they were looking for jobs, and they were in Tokyo,” Fraser explained to TheWrap. “And Stephen was basically going through the Yellow Pages and found a listing for, you know, ‘What can an expat, an American foreigner, do for work’ at that time?”
“And some listings were like, ‘Well, you could go and be a cafe butler,’ or ‘You could be someone who does odd jobs.’ And one listing that came up was rental family,” he continued. “And when Stephen told Hikari about it, she said, ‘Wait a minute, I’m Japanese, and I didn’t even know about this.’”
As Hikari and Blahut did some digging on the service, they learned that there are around 300 businesses that exist now in Japan, dating all the way back to the 1980s, that offer the services shown in the film.
“The business model is pretty simple. They service clients who feel isolated, who feel secluded, who feel lonely, honestly,” Fraser explained. “And they get people to stand in for family members in their lives.”
In the case of Phillip in “Rental Family,” those roles include being a mysterious funeral-goer, a best friend and more. But the most impactful roles he plays are that of a journalist writing a fake story on a dying movie star, and the long-lost father to a little girl.
At first, Phillip struggles with the idea of lying to clients’ family, but soon enough, he starts seeing the good of Rental Family Inc. The necessity of these services is something Fraser himself also picked up on, as learned about the culture of Japan, and learned that mental health is simply not talked about.
“Loneliness is epidemic, not just because of the population demographics and the differential in ages — an aging population, lower birth rate, etc. — I mean, it all adds up to, there becomes a sense of seclusion or solitude that people contend with,” he said.
“And that can be harmful in one way, but it also can be, as Akira Emoto, our 77-year-old star of ‘Rental Family,’ pointed out, he said it gave him a lot of time to think. It’s not always such a bad thing. You can reflect. You can take the time to figure out a new way forward,” Fraser continued.
“Rental Family” is now in theaters everywhere.
