It’s remarkable to me how much Rental Family feels like a Japanese film. 

That might come across as an obvious or perhaps even insulting comment, given that the director Hikaru is Japanese and the fact that it’s a Japanese/American co-production. However, to have a work with its aesthetics, storytelling, and subject matter get a wide theatrical release in the US—without being an import—feels special. A fair number of American films depict Japan or take place in them, but they don’t bring that same energy that one often finds in more contemplative dramas from Japan. 

Rental Family is about Phillip Vanderploeg (played by Brendan Fraser), a white American who has been living in Japan for seven years while trying to find work as an actor. Despite some modest successes early on, it’s been a struggle filled with rejections. Desperate for anything, he ends up working for a “rental family” business, in which he and other employees play roles for clients to fulfill some need, be it emotional or pragmatic. Phillip’s acting skills help him with this line of work, but when he begins to genuinely make emotional connections on the job, it complicates matters for everyone involved in these charades.

Phillip’s boss mentions early on that mental health issues are stigmatized in Japan, and that people find other outlets to deal with these problems, of which the rental family business is one. The film does a good job of introducing this idea to a potentially unfamiliar audience without feeling unnaturally expository, and also while feeling like a criticism of a facet of Japanese society from an insider perspective. It’s a country somewhat infamous for having a lot of places to engage in parasocial behavior (host clubs, maid cafes, brothels, idol fandom), but it depicts this behavior in a fair and even-handed fashion that highlights its benefits as much as its downsides.

For example, while Phillip never engages in adult business for his job, he does visit a sex worker, and it’s notable how this is not portrayed in a negative light. While this is a relationship fueled by the exchange of money for services and where interaction is on a timer, they actually enjoy each other’s company and think highly of each other. At the same time, they’re both well aware of the “professional” nature of it all, and they leave it at that small bit of emotional reciprocation.

The notion of hiring someone to pretend to be your friend or husband (or even a journalist to make your aging thespian father still feel special) can sound pathetic. “What, you need to pay someone to spend time with you?” There are limits to playing “pretend,” and it can go terribly wrong. However, the film emphasizes the idea that this charade might very well be the catalyst that brings a person out of their rut or their crushing social situation, and a major part of Phillip’s development throughout Rental Family is the joy he experiences seeing his clients and/or their families healing psychological wounds to an extent. The job is both fulfilling and taxing on his mental wellbeing, and as the plot progresses, it can show how challenging it is for Phillip to navigate that balance.

I highly recommend Rental Family, but I actually want to end off by talking about a completely different example of a white actor who became a symbol of parasocial dynamics.

Billy Herrington was a gay porn actor who became a meme on the Japanese video site Nico Nico Douga before tragically passing away in a car accident. In one of his adult films, he wrestled another performer in a locker room while wearing very little clothing, and this became the endless subject of music videos, remixes, and parodies. There are many reasons this could be considered controversial or perhaps even offensive, but Billy became a minor celebrity in Japan as a result, and he even got to meet his fans at an offline event in Japan. While I don’t have a link to the original story anymore, I recall reports that some fans actually cried meeting Billy, and even told him how much he had helped them in darker times. 

Ever since then, when I think about something being seen as silly or vapid, I wonder if it might still help someone overcome their own personal challenges. And while Phillip’s circumstances and means of changing people’s lives are not the same as Billy’s, I see his character (and the work of a rental family business) in a similar capacity, turning the “fake” into the “real enough.” 

PS: At the very beginning of Rental Family, the film has a series of establishing shots of Tokyo, and in one of the shots is, I believe, an image of a Saber from Type Moon’s Fate franchise (though if you ask me which one, I wouldn’t be able to tell you). In Fate/stay night, the protagonist Shirou famously has a line saying, “Who says a copy can’t surpass the original?” in response to the notion that his replicated weapons are inherently inferior to his opponent, Gilgamesh the King of Heroes.

It might very well be a coincidence, but I can’t help wondering if that brief appearance was on purpose.