Words by JANE CROWTHER
Brendan Fraser’s innate likeability is tapped for feel-good warmth in this lightweight drama following a washed-up actor eking out a living in Tokyo and finding an unexpected sense of family. Fraser plays the thesp, Phillip Vanderploeg, with the same sweetness he deployed in The Whale – less gay porn and gorging, but that perennially hopeful expression as he takes unfulfilling bit parts and shonky commercials, the glory days that brought him to Japan clearly long gone. When he’s called to play ‘sad American’ at a funeral (a lovely piece of physical comedy from Fraser as he uncomfortably tries to be inobtrusive) a new world of acting opens up.
A rental service run by Shinji (Takehiro Hira) offers him a gig as a ‘token white guy’ taking on roles in real people’s lives. Need a fake boyfriend, fake boss, fake journalist to prevent embarrassment at social gatherings? Call big Phil. After a stumble playing a groom to a gay bride who is trying to mollify her trad parents, Phillip gets into the swing of turning up into domestic situations and putting his actor training to good use. So he’s easy-breezy when he’s booked to play a fake dad to a young girl, Mia,(Shannon Mahina Gorman) whose single mum thinks having two parents will go over better for a posh school application. Mia isn’t told of the ruse, she thinks Phillip is her real father, returned after an absence and, after a bumpy start, the duo start to gel. What could possibly go wrong?
Following a well-worn arc, this gentle comedy-drama may not surprise, but that it moves nonetheless is down to Fraser’s delightful screen presence. Whether squashed into the Japanese metro or watching the lives of his neighbours from his apartment window, Fraser exudes a forlorn yearning and optimism for connection that is immediately endearing. When he arrives in his clients’ lives he is respectful, engaged, gentle – less a conman than a guardian angel, his good intentions shining from his open face. And when he begins to bond with Mia, Phillip’s own childhood is revealed, adding emotional depth to a trope as old as Chaplin’s The Kid. Plus, in terms of travel porn, Rental Family makes Japan look beguiling; from a cosy izakaya and a quirky cat festival to Tokyo twinkling neon at night, to karaoke bars and lush green forests. It’s a trip worth taking.
Pictures courtesy of Searchlight Pictures
Rental Family is in cinemas now
