A Japanese actor turned director, Hikari writes and directs Rental House, a low-key Tokyo drama showcasing the rejuvenation of actor Brendan Fraser. Fraser plays a bumbling, affable actor who joins a company which hires out actors to impersonate real people: a crowd at a wedding, a fake apologist lover, imaginary family. This is a Japanese phenomenon that we rarely encounter in the west and it offers Fraser the chance to spar with delicate issues as he pretends to be a young girl’s father in order to secure a good school; pretends to interview a famous actor to assist with dementia; and pretends to marry a girl so she can leave the country with her parents satisfied. The movie is delightfully shot across the panoply of Tokyo, along its train lines and highways, and down its oh-so-atmospheric laneways. Flirting with sentimentality but never succumbing, Rental House is a genuine tearjerker that, for once, works, by tapping our emotions as they should be tapped.
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