In a country like Japan, where there is still a stigma attached to mental health and those who suffer from it, the film Rental Family, which received standing ovations at the Toronto Film Festival, – In the Lives of Others, offers a unique insight into a curious type of support: small agencies that allow people to hire a professional actor to play a specific role in their lives, whether it be for companionship, to fulfill a dream, to resolve trauma, or to put an end to an unresolved issue:
“These people are not professional therapists, but they give you what you need. They listen to you. If you just want someone to sit across from you and talk or watch you eat, there’s a popular figure called ‘mister do nothing,’” explained director Hikari. “The clients of these agencies are people who say, ‘I have a father I haven’t been able to say goodbye to, can you help me?’, or ‘There’s someone I haven’t had the courage to apologize to’. Others just want someone to talk to or listen to them,” she adds.
An excellent cast led by Brendan Fraser as a selfless and sweet man, Mari Yamamoto and Takehiro Hira from Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, brings to life a comfort movie that leaves the viewer with a reassuring feeling of warmth and tenderness, a balm for the spirit in an era of dissociation and loneliness dominated by distant social media relationships. The protagonist is an American actor, Phillip Vandarploeug, who became very popular in Japan thanks to a toothpaste commercial in which he wears a funny costume.
After several years, his career in the Asian country is in decline, and he realizes that he has become just a giant, lonely gaijin in a place that no longer offers him many opportunities. That is, until he agrees to work for an agency that asks him to pretend to be the foreign father of an adorable little girl whom he will grow fond of: “He is paid to be part of other people’s lives, but at the same time he needs it to feel he has a purpose,” observed Brendan Fraser.
“The film is about disconnection between people. We are used to communicating through social media, spending so much time on our phones or computers that we don’t have time to really look each other in the eye. This connection is lacking not only in Japan, but everywhere. Nearly 40% of people in Japan feel lonely, but it’s a universal problem,” added the director, who also described Fraser as “a warm-hearted person.”
As is his character, a rare case, in the age of rough antiheroes, of an extremely positive and naive figure who ends up taking his job too seriously: “Philip, whether he admits it or not, is a man in search of himself,” observes his interpreter. Overflowing with good intentions and moderately pleased with itself, Rental Family is an uplifting and moving experience, “the kind of film we need to see now more than ever,” Fraser assures us.
The story weaves together a series of situations marked by Phillip’s professional encounters, all of which are extremely emotional and tend to be tear-jerkers. Hikari prevents the tone from becoming too sentimental and tearful, maintaining emotional control and pulling back before the story becomes overly saccharine. Co-produced by the United States and Japan, filmed in English and Japanese, Rental Family is a dramedy with a dual nationality soul, like its author, Mitsuyo Miyazaki, who grew up in Osaka but moved to Los Angeles as a teenager.
A successful collaboration between East and West, it explores loneliness and human connections, emphasizing the importance of empathy and having people who love us in our lives, i.e., an elective family. “The lady who runs the agency that inspired us told us about an elderly woman who asked for the company of a young man so she wouldn’t feel lonely at night,” Hira revealed, before explaining:
“In Japan, it’s difficult to ask for help because people are afraid of being a burden, even to their own family, but we suggest that a family doesn’t necessarily have to be made up of relatives.” Watching the film, you will initially feel happy, then sad, then happy again. Yamamoto adds: “There is no such thing as 100% happiness. Every human experience includes sadness and joy. This is the meaning of Rental Family: real emotions are not always perfect, but they are always authentic.”
