Rental Family

I’m in a Japan moment.

Maybe it’s the influence of the cherry blossoms of New York’s parks and botanical gardens in April, but Perfect Days, “Shōgun,” and a recent replay to the Platinum trophy in From Software’s ronin epic, Sekiro, have me visiting Japan daily. The latest voyage happened this weekend when Lauren and I watched Hikari’s Rental Family.

Phillip (Brendan Fraser) is a struggling working actor in Tokyo who was once an iconic commercial character (effectively, Toothpaste-Man).

But the good times have faded, and now he’s hustling subways and shinkansen for his daily bread ramen. After some light exposition, he’s invited to join an agency that sends out rental familial roles: a missing father, a contrite mistress, a reporter, a claque for a child’s recital, etc.

The premise of a rental family agency could be another moment of “Japan so crazy” à la penis festivals, take-out everything, or Lost in Translation’s wince-worthy beats like “Lip [sic] my stocking.” Director Hikari’s experience living abroad among westerners gives her a directorial edge. Her direction shows perplexing foreignness (love hotels, a corporate apology culture that looks like sadomasochism, etc.), but not at the expense of showing shared humanity. The film never gawks and thus creates a study in character. It is a movie that hinges on characterization with the beauty of both urban and rural Japan as sumptuous set. Says Shinji Tada, the agency owner: “You can live here a hundred years and still be left with more questions than answers.”

As a young man I wanted to know what happened to people; now, I want to know who they are. This is the goal of Rental Family as well.

Anchoring the film is the Western star Brendan Fraser in his renaissance. But his ability to light the screen is only possible by his Japanese costars — and what luminous stars they are. As a westerner, it’s hard not to see the silence of Japanese actors as “stoic” or “duty-bound” among men and “elegant” and “retiring” among women. I’m sure that’s some latent Orientalist projection I’ve been socialized to see. Hikari seems to know this and plays with expectations by having Takehiro Hira (recently seen playing an impotent, silent, dutiful Iago-esque retainer in Hulu’s “Shōgun”) play the warm and friendly and fairly emotionally available owner of the rental family service against an icy Mari Yamamoto as Aika.

And while Mari’s bone structure won’t let her be unpretty and thus “elegant,” her internal turmoil is borne in stoic (male-coded) silence and subtlety. This allows her to play a negative foil and a positive foil to Fraser’s Phillip.

But it is Fraser’s dynamic with the elder screen icon Akira Emoto, playing Kikuo Hasegawa, that shows how good Fraser can be as a lead. His performance is humble and subtle, especially when his scene-mate is fully channeling his character.

To say too much about the interaction between Kikuo and Phillip risks a major spoiler, so I’m going to be a bit elliptical. Both men are actors who left a home behind in pursuit of their craft. And while that choice cost them, it also revealed them to themselves. Kikuo doesn’t know Phillip is playing a journalist interviewing him rather than being one — but through dramatic irony, he addresses both the “journalist” and the real man beneath it. Kikuo serves as a mirror, helping Phillip begin, in his moment of crisis, to find peace with himself and see the spiritual plane that drapes Japan.

ASIDE: I remarked to Lauren that Emoto’s performance put me in mind of Nakata from Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. To any casting agents reading: Emoto would be perfect for that role. He portrays the addled gently, without mockery even as he suggests being touched by some voice beyond our realm.

Fraser, for his part, plays a sympathetic middle-aged pilgrim — and at this point in my own life I recognize the territory. Halfway through, you start to see new ways to weigh what matters and what doesn’t; you begin to spot repeating motifs in the chaos of existence and feel the pull to use that pattern-recognition to direct what comes next. Rental Family gives us characters discovering who they are, and in doing so suggests how we might prefer to be in our lives.

Rental Family is a lovely film. Its slow pace and gentle respect for all the characters lets them illuminate the great enduring mysteries of life itself. Being an age peer to Phillip, I found his journey compelling. Ultimately he lets us know that understanding others without judgement in their truth is a pathway to a life full of meaning.

• Next: Perfect Days