Rental Family is the title given to a strange Japanese phenomenon of someone acting in order to pretend to be someone’s friend, lover, relative etc.
Hence, when we first meet Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser, who was so good recentlyish in The Whale), he’s seen in many guises, from playing the ‘sad token white American guy’ at a Japanese funeral, before heading to pretend to be someone’s friend, as they hire him to play videogames, and then to take part in a fake wedding, for the bride, Yoshie (Misato Morita), to fool her parents… only to then be with HER potential bride after they’ve gone, since being gay is frowned upon over there.
Phillip’s lived in Tokyo for 7 years, and is now being tasked with the acting role of pretending to be the father of a young girl, Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman). Straight up, for me, this raises an ethical dilemma. It’s one thing to try and fool someone’s parents when they’re just out of touch with the modern way of life, but you don’t lie to children. In reality, he shouldn’t have gone along with it, as it then consumes his thoughts inbetween any time he’s hired to pretend to be in her life.
But, this is the premise, and also threatens a potential acting job in Korea, since he’s starting to become attached to her, and it’ll take him away from her.
I largely enjoyed Rental Family, partly because Japan is a place I’ve wanted to visit for some time, and hope to do so soon, but it’s also a heart-wrenching tale that doesn’t get full of the type of sentimentality that you’d expect from a Hollywood release.
However, it does jump the shark a bit later, with a different situation that I haven’t described, here. AS such, it results in him basically committing an act that’s against the law, since if a non-Japanese person gets into trouble with the police, they’re risking getting deported, as the authorities are hardly going to come down on your side.
Additionally, like an increasing number of films, why the hell is this shot in 2.00:1? As such, like with the recent Five Nights At Freddy’s 2, it’ll get sent out by the studio as a 2.00:1 film within a standard 1.85:1 container, so in most cases with cinemas, the film will be shown on a 2.39:1 screen – as Rental Family was – and will end up looking windowboxed, with black bars at the side, as well as some smaller ones top and bottom. How stupid.
And another problem, which currently affects Odeon Trafford Centre’s Screen 6 – normally one of my favourite screens, due to the seating layout, and because I’ve rarely had a problem in there… until now, since it appears that Lights ON is the new ‘normal’.
As the film began, the lights didn’t fully go down, staying at the same point they’re on when the trailers are playing. There didn’t seem to be a safe point to nip out and ask about this until almost 20 minutes in, but then knowing that this film came out 2 months ago in the US, I figured if there was anything I missed that was essential, I’d be able to catch up later. (Checking when I got home, I found I was right on that).
I mentioned it to a member of staff who didn’t say too much, but then I saw they were about to radio it in, and so I went back to my seat because I didn’t want to miss the film. That said, at no point did anyone come in, and nor did the situation change.
I had a feeling it was the same situation as 2 years ago in screen 3, when Night Swim turned into ‘Light Swim’, since they left the lights on in the same position because the stair strip lights needed fixing. A few months later, they had been. I’d noticed that in screen 6 for some time, when the lights went down, it was pitch black, including the fire exits.
However, when I came out, I asked the same person and they confirmed when I’d been thinking, but said that those strip lights have just been removed, so that is how it’s going to be going forward.
REALLY? That’s what the cinema is going with?! How ridiculous!
I’d be wasting my time if I was to even discuss it with a manger there, so figured I’ll take it up with Guest Services, since it’s going to take Head Office to deal with fixing a physical fault in a screen.
So many screens have problems. I could list them all here, but at the same time, there are a number of screens that are fine, and I don’t understand why they don’t put NEW films in the screens that work, and let the old stuff clog up the broken ones.
I hope this isn’t going to be a permanent thing, or one where they pretend to do something, but never actually do anything. Their head office have form for that…
Rental Family is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 110 minutes
Release date: January 15th 2026
Studio: Searchlight Pictures
Aspect ratio: 2.00:1 (ARRIRAW (4.5K))
Rating: 7.5/10
Director: Hikari (aka Mitsuyo Miyazaki)
Producers: Hikari, Julia Lebedev, Eddie Vaisman, Shin Yamaguchi
Music: Jon Thor Birgisson, Alex Somers
Screenplay: Hikari, Stephen Blahut
Cast:
Phillip Vanderploeg: Brendan Fraser
Shinji: Takehiro Hira
Aiko: Mari Yamamoto
Mia Kawasaki: Shannon Mahina Gorman
Kikuo Hasegawa: Akira Emoto
Hitomi: Shino Shinozaki
Kota: Kimura Bun
Masami Hasegawa: Sei Matobu
Yoshie: Misato Morita
Yoshie’s Wife, Jun: Nanami Kawakami
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.