An American actor in Tokyo struggling to find purpose lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese “rental family” agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. He rediscovers purpose, belonging, and the beauty of human connection.

There’s a big hole that the movie Rental Family has to dig itself out of, and that’s that the entire premise is kind of awful. Set in Japan, where it’s a legitimate business to rent people to play roles in your life that are lacking – a best friend to join you for video games, a date for a wedding. There are good reasons a service like this could be beneficial. The movie shows us at the beginning when token gaijin Phillip (Brendan Fraser) joins the service and acts as the husband for a closeted young woman to appease her family. You can see the validity in that act, taking cultural differences into account. But the job the movie chooses to focus on – Phillip is a stand-in dad for a young girl, Mia, to help her get into a decent school. People lying to their family and friends to ease through antiquated oppression is one thing, but lying to the people you love for superficial reasons just feels gross.

Phillip feels the weight of this duplicity as he grows closer to Mia and lets her grow closer to him. Takehiro Hira as the owner of the service and Mari Yamamoto as a fellow co-worker, who mostly acts as an apologetic other woman to husbands “coming clean” to their wives, show the extremes of these actions. Yamamoto’s Aiko is continually slapped for her harlotous actions, and Hira’s Shinji struggles with the idea of family when his reality so consistently fabricated.

Fraser is a delightful anchor with his lumbering fish out of water presence and his big sad eyes as he goes against his better nature. His more affecting story is faking his way as a journalist interviewing a retired actor suffering from dementia. That storyline felt better as the impetus is based more in affection than deception and helps soften the harshness of the Mia story.

If you can get past the awfulness of the central story, the film is an interesting look at a uniquely cultural idea, especially through the outsider lens. Written and directed by Hikari (who helmed some episodes of Beef and Tokyo Vice), Rental Family showcases a more grounded Japan and has a great central performance from Fraser. The supporting cast was fine, but could’ve used a little more time spent of developing their characters.

Jonathan’s grade – B