There are over 300 companies today throughout Japan employing actors, not for film or television roles, but as ordinary people helping other ordinary people to get through the day. Rental Family explores the almost too bizarre to be true phenomenon and the emotional toll it takes from both sides. It’s a slam-dunk premise for a weepy dramedy, but director Hikari’s film is too unfocused to be as resonant as intended.

Rather than explore all 300 of the titular rental family companies, Hikari – who writes the screenplay with Stephen Blahut – focuses on Phillip (Brendan Fraser), a struggling American expat actor. Unfortunately we never really learn what brought Phillip to Tokyo, but his work mostly boils down to goofy commercials and token white guy roles in small productions. It’s not until he’s roped into a gig as a fake mourner at a fake funeral when he’s spotted by Shinji (Takehiro Hira), the owner of the rental family agency. His first assignment: pretend to be Mia’s (Shannon Mahina Gorman) absent father so that her mother (Shino Shinozaki) can see that she’s accepted into a posh, new school.

Most dopes who have seen a movie before will see where Rental Family is headed from here – especially after Phillip (whom Mia knows as Kevin) pinky swears upon meeting her that he’ll never leave her again. But it’s hard to be too mad at a film when Fraser plays all the emotional beats so nicely, and when Gorman is so adorable, even when the film barely shades her as anything more than that. What is easier to be frustrated by is the barely-seen relationship between Phillip and Mia’s mother. Surely the two would have communicated more about their expectations and developments as Phillip grows closer to Mia. Strangely, we also never learn the fate of Mia’s real father. 

Instead Hikari expands Phillips roles; we see him acting as a BFF to a gamer, a karaoke cheerleader, and more, but the most impactful sees him pretending to be a journalist writing a profile of famed actor Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto). Here is where Hikari could have reached for a profound connection between actors, and how to convincingly portray humanity to someone else. Instead, this section culminates in Phillip and Kikuo absconding across the country to his childhood home together.

Again, it’s hard to be mad about this section, especially when Emoto is perhaps giving the stealth MVP performance of the film. But throughout Rental Family, Hikari values easy sentiment before digging beneath the surface of these characters or their situations. The film also expands to show, briefly, the personal lives of Shinji, and Aiko (Mari Yamamoto), a fellow actor employed by the agency. If all of this sounds like too many roads to explore for a film that clocks in under 2 hours, you’re unfortunately correct. Perhaps if Hikari had simply stuck to any one of these compelling stories, Rental Family could have reached something profound.

Indeed, there’s an undercurrent to the film that touches on Japan’s reluctance to embrace mental health services. At the bleeding heart of Hikari’s film is a yearning, from all of its characters, to feel less alone. This is a noble avenue worth exploring, but it’s done in a frequently treacly, borderline manipulative fashion; John Thor Birgisson and Alex Somer’s score, lovely as it is, never fails to swell at all the nakedly emotional moments. The end result is a worthwhile but ultimately hollow endeavor that is sure to elicit tears (there were many sniffles heard throughout the theater at my screening) but little else.

Rental Family was screened as the Opening Night film at the Heartland International Film Festival. Searchlight Pictures will release the film in theatres nationwide on November 21.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• Rental Family had high hopes for awards and a plum spot with a World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. But sentiment on the ground quickly dropped, and the film didn’t even place in the top three for the Audience Choice award (a key predictor for Oscar glory). Unless audiences similarly turn away from Searchlight’s other contender Is This Thing On?, I wouldn’t place too much faith in Rental Family to be found on Oscar nomination morning.