Keswick Film Club - Rental Family

Synopsis

"We are served quite the dicey premise in the Tokyo-set drama/comedy 'Rental Family,' and in the wrong hands, it could have been a cringey, overly sugary disaster. But thanks to Hikari's elegant direction, a nimble and melancholic script by Hikari and Stephen Blahut, and the tenderhearted and attuned performances by an ensemble led by Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, and Akira Emoto, this is a beautiful and contemplative film, with lovely messaging and a couple of sly twists" - Richard Roeper, RoberEbert.com.

The 'dicey premise' is an out-of-work American actor, Phillip, living in Japan, is offered a job: being hired out to pretend to be a friend or a family member - his first role is to be a mourner at a funeral. Why is he doing this? Because in Japan this actually happens! The comedy is very real, but so is the pathos - why would anybody hire someone to pretend to be their groom at a wedding..?

"Fraser's character is haunted about making a living by lying, about faking real emotions, about blurring the line between illusion and reality. But isn't that what an actor's life is all about?' - Peter Travers, The Travers Take.

This blurring comes to a head for Phillip when he is hired to pretend he is a small girl's father. They begin to bond for real, but his character is still a fiction…