The Rental Family

Some films are brilliant. Some films are popular, and you watch them so you don’t feel like the only person on Earth who missed the memo. And then there’s Rental Family, a film so wonderfully insane it makes you question not just cinema, but humanity itself.

The premise is simple. You can rent a family. That’s it. Pay strangers to pretend they are your parents, siblings, maybe even your spouse. At first you think, fine, quirky comedy, harmless fun. Then you realise the horror: this is a world where people are so desperate for connection that they will literally pay actors to fake affection—and these actors are professionals. They are better at being human than almost anyone you know. Watching them smile and nod and pretend to care, you start to wonder whether actual families are a cruel joke played by evolution.

Brendan Fraser stars as Phillip, a lonely American actor in Tokyo who drifts into this service like someone wandering into a forest at midnight. His life is empty, his meals are sad, and the only thing that makes sense is hiring a fake mother who cooks better than any real mother ever did. And you sit there, half horrified, half laughing, thinking yes, yes, this is exactly how civilisation ends—not with a bang but with professionally trained actors pretending to love you.

The film has the precision of a well-timed car crash. You know it should not be happening, yet you cannot look away. By the forty-minute mark you are rooting for the fake family because they are competent, polite, and disturbingly organised—qualities most real families only show when you are about to die. It is absurd. It is hilarious. It is horrifying. Like watching someone reverse a caravan into a brick wall while whistling Beethoven, completely unaware of the carnage, yet somehow pulling it off with style.

Rental Family tries to explore loneliness, connection, and the small tragedies of human life. And it succeeds. Only it does so by holding a mirror up to the darkest part of society: our willingness to outsource emotions. To pay for affection. To pretend we are fine. And the terrifying part? It works. The fake family is better at life than the rest of us.

You laugh. You cringe. You shiver a little because somewhere deep inside you know this is not entirely fiction. Somewhere in Tokyo someone is renting a fake uncle, and you, dear viewer, are thinking yes, yes, that actually makes sense.

So yes, watch Rental Family. It is clever, bizarre, sometimes uncomfortable, and occasionally heartbreaking. And when the credits roll, you will sit there asking the same question I did: who comes up with these ideas, and why is it somehow better than 90 percent of Hollywood blockbusters? Because in a world of superheroes fighting cardboard villains, this Japanese film reminds you that real horror is human ingenuity applied to loneliness.

And if you are brave enough, maybe, just maybe, you’ll consider renting your own fake mother. Because frankly, life is exhausting, and someone has to make the noodles properly.