'Rental Family' review: Brendan Fraser charms his way through schmaltzy drama

Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

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It’s nearly impossible to root against someone as affable and genuine as Brendan Fraser. At 56, he recently cemented his comeback with an Oscar-winning performance in “The Whale,” a film I never fully embraced, even if Fraser poured every ounce of himself into the role. It was one of those situations where, if someone had to win, you were glad it was him. Now he returns to leading-man status in the feel-good dramedy “Rental Family,” from co-writer and director Hikari (who directed several episodes of Netflix’s “Beef”). The movie will likely charm mass audiences with its cheery premise, but I struggled with it, and worse, it thinks it’s far more profound than it is.

Fraser plays Phillip, a struggling American actor who has been living in Japan for nearly a decade. He’s adopted local customs, speaks fluent Japanese, and clings to the fleeting notoriety of a cheesy toothpaste commercial where he played a superhero battling gingivitis. Why he remains in a city that doesn’t offer him much opportunity is unclear, but luck appears to strike when he stumbles into a gig with Rental Family, a company that manufactures artificial memories and life scenarios. This is also the moment where the movie’s already-thin believability starts to crumble.

Phil’s introduction to the business involves a mock funeral where the “deceased” springs back to life, one of the film’s genuinely funny sequences. As a token white guy, Phil is a novelty the company believes it can use. He reluctantly signs on, presumably because his acting career isn’t paying the bills, though the job raises an obvious question the film barely interrogates: “Isn’t this wrong?”

Instead of building tension around that ethical minefield, the story becomes even more implausible when Phil is hired to pose as a father figure for a biracial girl named Mia (Shannon Gorman). Her mother hopes the illusion will help Mia get into an elite private school. Rather than just hire Phil for the academic interview, which would be the logical choice, the mother insists he actually bond with Mia to make the lie more convincing. Because nothing screams good parenting like emotional manipulation.

The entire setup feels queasy, and the movie never acknowledges how unsettling it is. The idea of fabricating a father to secure a school spot is; on one hand, you understand a mother fighting for her child’s future. On the other, doing so at the expense of Mia’s emotional well-being, especially since her real father abandoned her at a young age, borders on malpractice. The film flirts with more compelling territory through another gig involving an aging actor facing Alzheimer’s, a storyline that carries more emotional nuance and plausibility than the faux-dad routine, which often plays like something Nathan Fielder might attempt on “The Rehearsal.”

Yet Hikari never meaningfully grapples with the deeper realities of this line of work. Actors with Rental Family are routinely berated, even assaulted, and the film treats it like background noise. It also refuses to explore the lasting consequences of manipulating a child’s grief and longing. Instead, “Rental Family” settles into a pleasant, breezy rhythm, hoping its wholesome intentions overshadow its shaky ethics. It will probably work for many viewers in the moment. But at some point, audiences may confront just how disturbing these scenarios really are.

Still, Fraser is warm, grounded, and compelling, and it’s good to see him back in full leading-man form. I just wish the movie around him had the courage to look its own ideas in the eye.

Grade: C

RENTAL FAMILY is now playing in theaters.