Movie · 2025 · Comedy, Drama · 1h 50m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 6.9/10 (389.5K ratings)
Happiness tailored to you!
Overview
An American actor in Tokyo struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese 'rental family' agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients' worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.9/10
IMDb: 7.6/10
Letterboxd: 3.86/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
Metacritic: 64
TMDB: 7.7/10
Director
Hikari
Production
Sight Unseen Pictures, Domo Arigato Productions
Cast
Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, Paolo Andrea Di Pietro, Shinji Ozeki, Takao Kin, Risa Kameda, Yuma Sonan, Kana Kitty, Gan Furukawa, Yuji Komatsu, Ryoko Osada, Helen Sadler, Kaoru Mizuki, Shohei Uno, Sonoe Mizoguchi, Keiji Yamashita, Bun Kimura
Where to watch
Hulu
Curator Review
Verdict
A warm, gently funny dramedy with a strong emotional hook: an actor in Tokyo finds purpose by performing intimate roles for strangers, only to discover the job is really about connection, grief, and self-reckoning. It sounds sweet, humane, and lightly offbeat rather than broadly comic.
Best for
viewers who like tender, feel-good dramas with a premise twist
fans of stories about performance, identity, and emotional labor
audiences drawn to contemporary Japan as a setting
people who enjoy tear-jerker comedies that stay understated
Skip if
you want high-concept comedy with a fast pace
you prefer cynicism over sincerity
you’re not interested in quiet character studies
you dislike stories that lean into sentimentality
Overview
Rental Family takes a high-concept premise and plays it with unusual softness. The setup is inherently strange — an actor hired to impersonate family members, friends, and other emotional placeholders — but the film seems more interested in the ache underneath the gimmick than in the gimmick itself. That gives it a nice balance of comedy and melancholy, with the kind of emotional payoff that comes from people finally being seen.
Worth noting
Brendan Fraser’s presence appears to be a major part of the appeal: the role depends on charm, openness, and a willingness to look a little lost while still remaining lovable. The Letterboxd response suggests a movie that is funny in a low-key way, occasionally devastating, and very invested in the idea that performance can become a route to honesty rather than a barrier to it.
Bottom line
What makes it stand out is the blend of cultural specificity and universal loneliness. Tokyo isn’t just backdrop here; it’s part of the film’s emotional texture, shaping the protagonist’s isolation and the strange intimacy of the work he falls into. If the ending lands, this should be one of those small, restorative movies that sneaks up on you.
Top Letterboxd reviews
David Sims (2.5★) · 8327 likes
mostly consists of Brendan Fraser going ":)" and then sometimes he's like ":/"
demi adejuyigbe (5★) · 5802 likes
felt my cheeks aching from how much i was smiling through all of this and i only stopped smiling whenever it made me cry. unsurprisingly sweet, shockingly funny. detective/lawyer scene is one of my favorite things i've seen this year. there's only one needle drop in the movie and when i recognized it from the instrumentation i reacted in a way that was very unbecoming of a respectful moviegoing audience. why come everybody at the Rental Family agency is so hot? oh my god, also forgot how quietly pro-sex work it is for a family film. awesome. ultimately, a wonderful movie about how actors are evil
Hailli (4.5★) · 4668 likes
I would also pay Brendan Fraser to play video games with me.
Amanda the Jedi (4★) · 3722 likes
Hey this was really nice
jeaba (4.5★) · 3022 likes
some facts about me:
-i am a sucker for the found family trope
-i love nathan fielder’s the rehearsal
-i have a dead dad
-i am a lesbian
-i get a wee bit lonely from time to time
-i am legally required to bump up any movie’s rating by at least a half star if they use a david byrne/talking heads’ song
so yeah, every scene from start to finish spoke to me. i really found this to be incredibly… more some facts about me:
-i am a sucker for the found family trope
-i love nathan fielder’s the rehearsal
-i have a dead dad
-i am a lesbian
-i get a wee bit lonely from time to time
-i am legally required to bump up any movie’s rating by at least a half star if they use a david byrne/talking heads’ song
so yeah, every scene from start to finish spoke to me. i really found this to be incredibly… more
2004 · Comedy, Drama · 2h 8m · PG-13 · Curator 4.8/10 (1.2M ratings) · Where to watch: fuboTV, Paramount Plus Premium, Paramount Plus Essential, MGM Plus
An outsider-in-a-foreign-place story that turns isolation into a surprisingly humane ensemble experience.