I love Brendan Fraser and that is no secret. He is without a doubt the nicest man in Hollywood and I have been his fan ever since The Mummy terrified me as a small child and became my favourite film. So the fact he has returned to the screens, and in such deep and meaningful films, means a lot to both him and us- his fans. He's welcomed back with open arms and I have to say in a society where films are just remixes now or reboots, his are original and leave an imprint and that is the cinema I am here for.
We decided to make our cinema nights an event going forward as my ADHD has been making it hard to actually go to the screenings we have been scheduling. I find that it is easier for me if we go to the cinema straight from work as then there isn't a period where I have to think of the transition, I just have to go. I find it quite overwhelming to have that downtime in between work and the cinema and then it becomes a chore and hard for me to go out. So we've found that by removing that downtime I can be more productive and be able to go out and then not beat myself up after.
I am telling you this as this explains why we decided to watch Bone Temple and then Rental Family on the same night, and why I will be missing certain releases.
I feel like this was the right way around to do this. Bone Temple was stressful in places but also quite boring, so to then go to Rental Family which was gentle yet thought provoking was a nice balance.
The film follows Brian an actor who is now based in Japan, and is struggling to find work. He stumbles across an agency who hires actors to create a meaningful memory or emotion within those who wish to hire it. This can be a person who wishes for them to pose as a family member in order to experience something for the first time, them to pose as someone to trigger an emotion, or even as a stand in to get them out of a tricky situation.
We watch Brian take on varied different roles, and he grows into them as at first he thinks it is wrong for him to be messing with peoples lives. But he soon sees the impact he is having and how good it is and continues on. That is until he is hired to be a young girls absent father so that she may get into a good school, but the emotions become too real for both him and the girl and it turns everything on its head.
While this is going on, Brian also forms a meaningful connection with an elderly actor who he decides to help take back to his hometown so that he can do something personal. This is beautiful cinema. It was delicate, it was emotional, and most of all it was human. This man had dementia and wanted to say goodbye to a place special to him- I wont spoil the reason why, and Brian made it happen even though he got arrested for kidnapping. It ended up being the man's final wish as he died soon after, but this inspired change within the agency he worked for as they all realised that they were worth more than posing for the things people were missing, and instead were better simply providing people with the experiences worth living for.
In terms of his relationship with Mia, the little girl he was pretending to be a father to, it ended up being quite complicated but alright in the end. I almost wished that he had ended up with her mother and therefore ended up as her father figure by default, but that was too easy and this film was about how messy people are emotionally.
I didn't realise that the movie would be subtitled. That was my bad. I knew from the poster that it was set in Japan or a place similar, but I didn't consider that it would be authentic to the setting. I'm pleased that it was. Despite the subtitles the movie was easy to follow, but it was so emotionally charged that I needed a moment when the credits rolled to reflect. I had tears following at one point and it isn't often that a movie can make me cry with such subtle nods to things.
At its core, this movie explored life and loss and how we do things to cope with that. They couldn't have cast a better main character. Brendan was perfect, you could feel the awkwardness he felt, his guilt at having to give people what he felt were fake emotions, but how easily they became real for him. That's how he got through this, he gave people his genuine self. You could then feel his grief when it came to it, I just forget sometimes how good of an actor he is.
Rental Family was the perfect combination of soft storytelling and emotional crashes. It isn't often that a movie can just hold a funeral and not show the death scene in order to get such a rise out of an audience, but the film was all about subtlety and it showed. I really liked this film. I wouldn't watch it again because it hurt. It is memorable to me now so I know when to brace myself and it would never hit the same, but I'd recommend everyone to watch it at least once. This film makes you feel something, it hits close to home. Sometimes that's a good thing.
I'm giving Rental Family an 8/10. A nice rounded number for such a rounded film. It was sweet, it was moving, it was real. I can't put into words how much I connected to the film. Why don't I score it higher you ask? Because if I say a 10 it gives an unreal expectation that the movie is perfect. The casting was, but of course there were aspects I didn't enjoy. They were so minor though that they become irrelevant in the grand scheme of this review. The review fit the film, see it for yourself!
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