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throw Brendan Fraser If you want to make an earnest statement in your film. It’s not that he lacks the scope to do other things (of course, No one’s heart was broken by his racist lawyer exist Killers of the Flower Moon). but Oscar winner It soon became a gift to any director seeking naked emotion, instantly captured through those tear-filled, slightly upturned blue eyes, like a portrait of the Virgin Mary. He is a one-man empathy machine.
Fraser’s presence is crucial rental homedirector Hikari examines one of the many ways we band-aid loneliness beyond AI chatbots, Instagram feeds, and plastic gadgets. Japan has a culturally specific practice here: hiring strangers, like American actor Philip Vanderploeg, played by Fraser, to fill in the missing presence in people’s lives.
As Hikari shows, this covers a pretty wide range: a gamer looking for a partner; a lesbian who needs a groom to introduce to her homophobic parents (she’s literally married to a “friend” who patiently stands aside); a guy who throws himself a funeral and invites mourners so he can remember why he’s still alive.
This approach has been explored by some of the greatest nihilists in Western cinema. In the work of Werner Herzog Family Romance LLC (2019) with Yorgos Lanthimos alps (2011) focused specifically on imitating deceased relatives, focusing primarily on the uncertainty of reality and identity. Light’s film offers a thoughtful rebuttal. She’s a Japanese filmmaker who’s lived most of her life in America, and there’s a feeling here rental home Try to straddle both internal and external perspectives.
With Fraser as her figurehead, this is certainly a work of broad and deep compassion. But you also hope that Hikari and her co-writer Stephane Brahut will cross some self-imposed limits, if not out of sheer curiosity: larger questions about complex dynamics, or that the sights of Tokyo feel more everyday than pristine postcards, with cat monster festivals and expensive burlesque clubs around every corner.
Philip also had a rough history and came to the city for a new start. His only success was as a superhero mascot in a toothpaste commercial. So he found a job at the Rental Family company run by Shinji (Taira Takehiro) and established contact with two important customers.
The first is single mother Hitomi (played by Shinozaki Shinono), whose biracial daughter Mia (played by Shannon Gorman) needs a “father” to sit in on interviews at a prestigious high school. The second is Kikuo Hasegawa (played by Akira Emoto), an actor who is nearing the end of his life and needs companionship. Philip pretends to be a journalist and follows him for a career review. Of course, Mia charmed him with her innocence, and Kikuo with his intelligence.
Mia was told that Philip was her biological father. So, what happens after the contract ends? How lasting can a connection be when it’s based on lies? rental home The full impact of these questions is sidestepped, along with the implications of Philippe’s colleague Aiko (Mari Yamamoto)’s job posing as various mistresses so that the betrayed wife has someone else to blame but her own husband.
There’s not much curiosity about the “why” behind it all, aside from Shinji’s hasty explanation that mental distress of any kind is particularly stigmatized in Japan. instead, rental home Ending with the most striking image: a reminder that Fraser, with those glistening pools of water as eyes, was an endless source of sensation.
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Director: Hikari. Starring: Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto. 12A Certificate, 110 minutes.
“Rent Home” will be released on January 16
