RENTAL FAMILY

Rental Family

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RENTAL FAMILY, directed by HIKARI (TOKYO VICE, BEEF) and starring Academy Award winner Brendan Fraser, is a poignant and quietly humorous exploration of identity, loneliness, and the yearning for connection. Fraser plays a down-and-out American actor adrift in Tokyo, who stumbles into an unusual job at a “rental family” company—where he’s hired to play stand-in roles in the lives of strangers. From absent fathers to lost lovers, he slips into the roles people need, all while hiding his own emotional void. But as he becomes entangled in the constructed relationships he’s paid to perform, he unexpectedly finds joy, meaning, and a sense of belonging.

HIKARI, whose earlier work TSUYAKO and 37 SECONDS earned acclaim at the Hawai‘i International Film Festival (HIFF), brings warmth, nuance, and cross-cultural insight in her latest feature film, which has already generated early buzz for awards season. It is apropos to open this year’s HIFF with the latest film from one of the Festival’s alumnus filmmakers. RENTAL FAMILY is a heartwarming and soulful meditation on chosen family, healing, and second chances.