Recent Watch - Rental Family (2025)

Last night's watch was 'Rental Family' which I have been wanting to check out forever, and the movie lived up to every expectation I had, and then some. Brendan Fraser in interviews has called it a 'love letter to loneliness,' and honestly, no description fits better.

It's a tender, heart-warming film that explores the stories of some vastly different people in a grounded but really touching way, showing that isolation can come in many forms. I think the movie's biggest strength is in its simplicity; it doesn't ever become overly preachy, nor does it use profound, life-changing scenarios to get its message across. It mainly focuses on the issues of everyday people who crave, or sometimes practically need, someone to play a specific part in their lives, and for their own reasons choose to hire somebody to fill that specific role.

The movie presents its characters as real people without turning them into caricatures to be mocked, or reducing their loneliness or wanting for connection into a joke. Even with scenarios where many, especially western audiences, might wonder "why would someone do that?" it never resorts to ridicule; it doesn't judge the people who hire someone for the experience of companionship, friendship, or sexual intimacy, nor does it reduce the people who do that work into stereotypes.

Fraser's character Phillip is undeniably the heart of the film. It becomes clear early on that he is, above all else, a genuinely good guy who is not in an ideal place in life, but instead of playing with the usual bitterness and resentment formula, his isolation has made him more perceptive and empathetic towards the loneliness of others.

Which highlights the film's other huge strength: it turns the overused "hurt people, hurt people" trope on its head. Because while traumatic experiences do sometimes lead people down toxic paths, we also need stories that remind us that people with less than ideal backgrounds very often grow to be kind and protective, precisely because the absence of affection has made them acutely aware of its importance. Sometimes hurt people see the hurt in others better than anyone else.

We're not shown any lengthy flashbacks about Phillip's childhood, but we get enough info on how he grew up with an absent father and that his mother has passed, and the film trusts the audience to connect the dots as to what motivates him besides the initial need of being an actor out of work. Beyond the job, in the two main storylines Phillip's actions are primarily driven by the fact that he sees the loneliness in Mia and in Akira Emoto's character and, arguably, they see the loneliness in him, too. And that's what shapes both of those connections. 

In the end of the day, you don't need to fully understand someone's culture, background, or life choices to see the humanity in them, or to accept that yearning for the presence of a proud parent, or someone to play video games with, or someone to vent to, or any simple gesture or act of kindness is a deeply rooted human need. This is fundamentally the theme that the film sets to explore, and it does so brilliantly.