"Brendan Fraser is an actor performing characters who help people achieve a sense of emotional healing, affirmation or comfort. That could describe who he tends to be in real life (whatever that means in this context) but it's also what he's playing in Rental Family. The feelgood dramedy or at least that's what it tries so hard to be is about an actual service in Japan that supplies actors who perform as bit players in everyday people's lives."
"The premise packs meta layers and gives Fraser the opportunity to inhabit multiple roles, while turning the lens back on the audience to consider what we're looking for in the movie(s). Unfortunately, when it comes to Rental Family, it's just not that deep. The new film from co-writer and director Hikari (who helmed three episodes of the sharp and sinister Netflix series Beef) is enamoured (or even consumed) by the very artificiality it's about,"
"And that's too bad considering the cast on hand, not just Fraser whose sad eyes give way to a well of emotions and thoughtfulness but also the excellent and underutilised Mari Yamamoto (Monarch: Legacy of Monsters). She plays the more seasoned actor-for-rent colleague, who is regularly humiliated in gigs pretending to be mistresses making ritualised apologies to betrayed wives on behalf of their spineless husbands. As underwritten as her scenes may be, Yamamoto left me wishing the movie was about her."
Rental Family centers on a Japanese service that supplies actors to play fabricated roles in clients' everyday lives. Brendan Fraser plays Phillip, a struggling American actor in Japan whose claim to fame is an embarrassing toothpaste commercial. The film aims for a feelgood dramedy tone but remains surface-level and timid about probing its premise. Director Hikari leans into the film's artificiality instead of challenging it. Mari Yamamoto delivers a strong, underused performance as a seasoned actor-for-rent who endures humiliating gigs and evokes a desire for a more focused story about her character.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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