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There are two things you need to be okay with to appreciate Rental Family. 

The first is the sentimentality. It is interesting that the last movie I reviewed was the brilliant Sentimental Value which despite that title was really measured in how it handled its emotional content connected to things, to people and to the past. This film, it has to be said, goes the other way. For me though, while certainly manipulative, it stayed the right side of mawkishness by merit of how neat and well crafted it remains. Yes it is controlling in terms of how it plays with its audience’s feelings but it is still controlled, and ultimately it steers away from what appears to be inevitable melodramatics at every point. 

The other hurdle you need to be able to get over, else you lose sympathy with many of the central characters, is the nature of the work they do. The story revolves around Brendan Fraser’s Phillip who has been struggling as an actor in Tokyo for some years when he is employed by a company who hire out people to play roles in clients real lives, like friends or mourners, fake partners or in one case an absent father. This generally involves deceiving innocent individuals and some reviewers have found this practice righteously unforgivable. 

The fact is though there are genuinely a large number of these businesses in Japan and while this does raise some ethical questions, it is clearly a part of their society. The movie very much comes from this point of view as well; it is an American and Japanese coproduction but the authorship demonstrably comes from the latter country. To come down on this hard is to display a certain amount of, if not cultural snobbery then certainly cultural close mindedness. The narrative does acknowledge the issues as well but without heavy moralising. Through elements of the plot there are comparisons made to those working in the sex industry too and they are all just services that some lonely people use. No judgement. The film decides not to take a superior stance and simply asks the same of the viewer. 

If you accept all of this then what you are free to enjoy is a simple and sweet story of human connection. There is humour here although it is light and the drama is comfortable, but it is all moving and nicely endearing in good measure. 

I might add that you need to be okay with subtitles too, as more of it is in Japanese than you might anticipate, but if you can’t get past this then there is much more you are missing out on. I do wonder if the inclusion of an American lead is there to bring a wider audience, like Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings & a Funeral, because although this plays into the plot this at its heart is not a US citizen adrift in foreign lands tale like Lost in Translation. Let’s just add this to the list though and move on. 

It’s not that Rental Family has flaws then as much as it has choices and it’s your choice as to whether these are a problem for you or not.

I liked it. I elected to see it and my position is that you should to.