Rental Family

It was going to happen at some point that someone turns this real life industry into a major film. The Japanese rental family introduces all kinds of moral issues.

Brendan Fraser's Philip is a struggling American actor in Tokyo. He doesn't buy into being a fake husband, father, journalist, or friend easily. He properly conveys the moral weight of the rental family while making the best of this situation.

This is potentially heavy material, Yes people's lives are affected, often for the better and sometimes for the worse, but it's handled in a lighthearted engaging way.

It may feel cliché the way things ultimately unravel but this is a smartly made film that leaves you with something to think about.

We saw this at TIFF, including a great Q&A with the director afterward. Brendan Fraser is fantastic, as are several of the Japanese actors. The basic premise - that people can be rented to act as substitute friends or family - was shocking to us but is evidently a real part of Japanese culture. While there are numerous minor story arcs, two main ones are each quite compelling; one involving a fatherless girl, and another a fading old man. Their stories will make you both smile and weep.

Saw this film at the Virginia Film Festival, and it such a beatifully done film. The touching theme of connections between people and those who are missing something.

Brendan Fraser's performance was masterful that only he could have brought to this project.

Hikari brings together the beauty of human connection and Tokyo in such an amazing way in this film.

The concept is really intriguing given some of us go through life longing to feel a certain way and never having the chance to!

The movie is an affectionate journey through Japan following Phillip, passionately portrayed by Brandon Frasier; a lonesome American actor struggling to find his next big break.

It had so many beautiful moment, I just felt I needed to sit with some of it before moving on to the next shot or sequence. Jonsi's music heightens the film's heart warmth and uplift. Highly recommended.

I've been curious about this film for a while and it had such an interesting premise to me that I had to see this one. I think this film is absolutely heart wrenching and just throws so much emotional moments towards you that it gets you really close to crying or crying already. Brendan Fraser is just absolutely phenomenal and truly delivered yet another absolutely remarkable performance and the moments between Mia and Kikuo had me absolutely so emotional and really just elevated this film even more for me. The story here is absolutely beautiful and it's really a fresh concept which has you really thinking about the storyline going here and how Hikari truly had a brilliant idea with a beautiful work of cinematography and visuals to deliver this film which elevates it even higher for me. I really love the film delves the audience into more about the Japanese culture as that's something I'm not too knowledge about and I love how the film portrays the culture of Japan and all the beauty's and how you can't uncover all of its secrets even if you lived there for 100 years like the film states. I really love the score for the film as well and there's such beautiful moments when the film relies on the score to help bring out more emotional moments with beautiful and astonishing visuals. I feel like the film was a little predictable but that's not anything bad about the film though I feel like sometimes I could just see where things were headed pretty easily I feel like I didn't mind that due to this incredible and emotional story that were following throughout the movie. It's so emotional and wholesome seeing Brendan Fraser's character of Phillip and how he's trying to just help these people if he can possibly can and how he's going out of his way to make sure these people can have memories that can change them for the better. I honestly just think this movie was absolutely fantastic and it had me balling my eyes out near the end of the film due to how beautiful this story truly was and hats off to Brendan Fraser for another incredible performance. This is definitely worth watching in my opinion for sure.