Hikari’s Rental Family is one of those rare films that feel both familiar and quietly new. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival and later shown at the BFI London Film Festival 2025, it tells a story that slips gently between melancholy and hope. Produced by Searchlight Pictures and co written by Hikari and Stephen Blahut, the film follows an American actor in Tokyo who gets paid to play missing roles in other people’s lives.

Phillip Vandarpleog, played by Brendan Fraser, lives alone in a small apartment. Once known for a toothpaste commercial that still haunts Japanese billboards, he now drifts from one failed audition to another. His luck changes when he accepts an odd job to act as a mourner at a fake funeral. The company behind it, called a rental family service, hires actors to fill emotional gaps for its clients. A stranger might request a husband, a parent, or a friend, and Phillip suddenly finds himself in all of these roles.

What begins as a strange acting gig turns into something deeper. The film balances humour and sadness as Phillip builds unexpected bonds with the people he is hired to comfort. One thread follows his growing connection with a young girl, Mia, who believes he is her real father. Another centers on his friendship with an aging actor, Kikuo, whose fading memory makes every word feel like a goodbye. These relationships become a quiet study of what it means to be seen.

Fraser gives one of his most touching performances to date. Known for his career comeback after The Whale, which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor, he once again shows the same emotional honesty that made audiences fall for him in the first place. His performance here is subtle, stripped of artifice, and full of warmth. Every silence feels lived in, every smile earned. He plays Phillip not as a saviour but as a man learning to care again.

Hikari directs with precision and tenderness. The film captures Tokyo as a city of contrasts, full of light and silence, order and loneliness. Takuro Ishizaka’s cinematography turns windows and doorways into emotional spaces, while Jónsi and Alex Somers’ score carries the story like a slow heartbeat. Together, they build an atmosphere that invites reflection rather than spectacle.

The narrative moves through two central relationships, each showing different forms of need. With Mia, Phillip becomes a figure of love and illusion. With Kikuo, he becomes a listener to fading memories. Both arcs show how small acts of kindness can bridge vast distances. The film never judges the practice of rental families. Instead, it presents it as an expression of shared vulnerability. Everyone here is pretending to be someone else, but in the act of pretending, they find truth.

Hikari avoids melodrama, letting emotion emerge through stillness. There are quiet moments when Phillip simply watches others live, and you sense the ache of a man outside the frame of his own life. The supporting cast including Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, and Shino Shinozaki all contribute to the feeling of collective loneliness that runs through the story. Even in its most sentimental passages, the film feels honest.

Rental Family is gentle, heartfelt, and sincere. It does not need twists or grand revelations. It stays close to its characters and finds beauty in small gestures. Fraser carries it with grace, and Hikari shapes it with care. It is a film about longing, about the roles we play to make others feel whole, and how those roles can slowly heal us too.

Credits
Director: Hikari
Writers: Hikari and Stephen Blahut
Cinematography: Takuro Ishizaka
Editors: Alan Baumgarten and Thomas A. Krueger
Music: Jónsi and Alex Somers
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, Akira Emoto, Shino Shinozaki
Producers: Julia Lebedev, Hikari, Eddy Vaisman, Shin Yamaguchi
Distributor: Searchlight Pictures

Reviewed via Screening Room at BFI London Film Festival 2025.

Release
In cinemas in the United States from 21 November 2025.
In the United Kingdom, including London, from 9 January 2026.

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