The last time Brendan Fraser was onscreen, he turned in an Oscar-winning performance, and judging by early reviews of Rental Family, he could be back in the awards conversation. In director Hikari’s Rental Family, Fraser plays a struggling American actor living in Japan, who gets hired for stand-in roles in people’s lives — but he inevitably finds it hard to separate his professional duties from his personal feelings. The film, which recently debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, has critics tugging on their heartstrings (some more than others, naturally) — and currently has a 95 percent “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes, though just 68 “generally favorable” on Metacritic.
“Hikari’s Rental Family may just be the most gentle, human film you’ll see all year,” raves Screen Rant’s Mae Abdulbaki. “It’s the kind of film we need more of, as it captures the people’s loneliness and need for connection — with family, friends, and even strangers — with a tenderness that I haven’t seen in a while. … It’s evocative and rich, tackling complex emotions and relationships with a delicacy that may just have you tearing up.” She goes on to praise Fraser’s “stunning” turn.
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The Hollywood Reporter‘s Frank Scheck, among others, singles out Fraser’s performance. “Fraser, who previously exploited his toned physique to terrific comic effect in George of the Jungle and other early films, now uses his comparative bulk with moving results,” he writes. “Lumbering through Tokyo and looming over the Japanese figures with whom he comes into contact, he makes you feel his character’s otherness both physically and emotionally. His superbly nuanced and expressive performance proves key to the film’s power.”
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich says the film is “sweet and twinkly,” giving it an overall grade of B-. “Hikari may be too straightforward a storyteller to indulge in any explicitly self-reflexive shenanigans, but there’s something to be said for emotional manipulation in the context of a movie that celebrates the fact that feelings — and relationships — can be as real as the belief that we invest in them, even if only for a while.”
Several reviewers branded the film with the “manipulative” label. “A movie like Rental Family lives or dies by its tone,” says Variety’s Peter Debruge, “and the one Hikari strikes is reflected in the concerned creases of Fraser’s forehead: It’s maudlin and unconvincing, means well but isn’t above manipulating us for the desired emotional outcome.”
Slant’s Alexander Mooney is far less charmed by the film’s premise, calling it a “grotesque dramedy.” “Rental Family is a grueling schlep toward its climactic stretch, in which the film ties off every loose end and stoops to mawkish feel-goodery of the highest order, sanding off the roughest, darkest edges of its conceptual hook and sweeping them under the rug.”
Rental Family will be released in theaters on Nov. 21.
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