Poster © Searchlight Pictures. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreFeature film
RatedPG-13
Runtime1 hr 49 mins
ReleasedNovember 21, 2025
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorHikari
StarringBrendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto
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Rental Family (2025)
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| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
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| Rental Family's Details | |
| Genre | Feature film |
| Rated | PG-13 |
| Released | 09/06/2025 (TIFF); 11/21/2025 (United States); 02/27/2026 (Japan) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 1 hr 49 mins |
| Budget | Not reported |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Country | United States, Japan |
| Language | English, Japanese |
| Rental Family's Interests | |
| General | Tokyo, staged weddings, borrowed names, quiet shrines, one very old toothpaste ad. |
| Music | Jónsi and Alex Somers. Gentle, glowy, sad in a good way. |
| Movies | Lost in Translation (2003). Another lonely American finding his footing in Tokyo. |
| Television | Terrace House. Real people in Tokyo, or so everyone says. |
| Heroes | Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto). Retired actor, still the best scene partner in town. |
| Rental Family's Crew | |
| Director | Hikari |
| Writers | Hikari, Stephen Blahut |
| Producers | Eddie Vaisman, Julia Lebedev, Hikari, Shin Yamaguchi |
| Cinematography | Takurō Ishizaka |
| Music | Jónsi, Alex Somers |
| Edited By | Alan Baumgarten, Thomas A. Krueger |
| Production | Sight Unseen Productions, Domo Arigato Productions |
| Distributed By | Searchlight Pictures |
The whole business in Rental Family runs on fibbing to people, a little girl included, and the movie is a bit too charmed by that to really wrestle with it. Brendan Fraser plays Phillip, an American actor in Tokyo whose biggest credit is an old toothpaste commercial, who takes a gig with an agency that hires out actors as stand-in relatives and friends. Soon he’s a fake groom at a wedding, a long-lost dad to a girl named Mia, and a pretend journalist interviewing Kikuo, a retired actor. Fraser is gentle and funny here, and his open-hearted sincerity carries every scene. Hikari keeps everything low-key and kind, and the ensemble around him, Akira Emoto as Kikuo especially, is terrific. The third act does lean on a contrived scramble to tie things up. CinemaScore crowds graded it an A, and it made $26.8 million worldwide. A 7.6 because Fraser turns a shaky premise into a warm one. $289 says you call a relative this weekend just because, no script needed.
What works: Brendan Fraser is warm and funny, and his scenes with Akira Emoto’s Kikuo and young Shannon Mahina Gorman’s Mia are the heart of it.
What doesn’t: The film never really reckons with how much its rented relationships deceive people, and the third act ties everything off a little too neatly.
Who it’s for: Anyone who loved Fraser’s comeback and wants to see him in something gentle, plus fans of quiet Tokyo stories.
Spoilers
Phillip takes Kikuo on an unapproved trip to his childhood home and gets arrested for kidnapping, and his coworkers stage their own performance to get him cleared. Kikuo later dies peacefully, and Mia learns who Phillip really is, then lets him back into her life as himself.
Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser) is an American actor in Tokyo whose big claim to fame is a toothpaste ad from years back. The work has dried up and the money has too, so he signs on with Rental Family, an agency run by Shinji (Takehiro Hira) that sends actors out to play stand-in relatives and friends for paying clients. His coworkers include Aiko (Mari Yamamoto). Soon Phillip is playing a fiancé at a staged wedding, an absent dad to a young girl named Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), and a reporter profiling retired actor Kikuo (Akira Emoto). Hikari directs. One hundred ten minutes, and the feelings are not rented.
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| Brendan Fraser | Phillip Vanderploeg |
| Takehiro Hira | Shinji |
| Mari Yamamoto | Aiko |
| Shannon Mahina Gorman | Mia Kawasaki |
| Akira Emoto | Kikuo Hasegawa |
| Shino Shinozaki | Hitomi |
| Kimura Bun | Kota |
| Sei Matobu | Masami Hasegawa |
| Misato Morita | Yoshie Ikeda |
| Tamae Ando | Lola |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 19 October 2026 DataBot +520 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $26.8M; Domestic box office $10M; Opening weekend $3.3M; profit note now waits on a budget; Rotten Tomatoes 87%; CinemaScore A; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 87% (204 reviews); Metacritic 64 / 100; Rotten Tomatoes audience 95% (1,000+ verified ratings); CinemaScore A; IMDb users 7.5 / 10 (68,355 votes); movie.guru score 8.2.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 19 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.