Dir: Hikari, Japan/US, 2025, 110 mins English/Japanese with subtitles
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Akira Emoto, Mari Yamamoto,
Review by Carol Allen
Despite his somewhat precarious situation however, he decides to stay on in the city. His agent then puts him on to the Rental Family agency, who do just that – they supply actors to play fake roles as a family member, a friend or even the cheering audience at a karaoke bar. His first gig is as a mourner at a funeral, where the client is the deceased, who then sits up very much alive and delighted to have all these strangers mourning him.
The Japanese formality that surrounds the action is charming – maybe that’s why the actor cannot tear himself away from the city, while Fraser is sweetly funny as Philip, reminiscent of a mournful but amiable bull in a very fine china shop.
The film also Introduces us to some interesting Japanese actors such as Mari Yamamoto as an agency regular who specialises in playing mistresses, hired to apologise to betrayed wives on behalf of their feeble husbands and the firm’s owner (Takehiro Hira), who hires Fraser for whenever he needs a “token white guy”.
That comes into play when he’s hired by a single mother to play her little girl’s missing white father in order to get her into a good school and man and child (Shannon Gorman) develop a strong affection for each other. Most touching though is when Fraser pretends to be a journalist and fan of an ageing actor (Akira Emoto), who is slipping into dementia and they embark together on an odyssey into the actor’s childhood in the country.
Talking of which the film looks gorgeous. That countryside is beautiful but in a different way so is brightly lit and overcrowded Tokyo, where Philip looks out of his window at the various personal dramas being played out behind the windows of the many other tiny apartments.
The morality of the story could be seen as a bit dodgy in places, particularly the scenes with the single mother and her daughter but the film is charming enough for us to forgive that and just enjoy it.
About the Author
