Brendan Fraser, the beloved actor whose career resurgence was crowned with an Oscar in 2023, makes a triumphant return as a leading man in the heartwarming Boxing Day release, Rental Family. The film opens on the biggest cinema day of the year, offering Australian audiences a poignant and affirming story set in Tokyo.
From Oscar Glory to a Tokyo Rental Family
The journey to this point for Brendan Fraser has been well-documented. After years of being a Hollywood mainstay in films like The Mummy, Fraser faced personal and professional challenges, including speaking out about the mental toll of fame and his own #MeToo experiences. His Oscar win for The Whale was a celebrated moment, signalling a powerful and mature return to the industry's forefront.
That Oscar has now paved the way for Fraser to headline a major seasonal release. In Rental Family, he plays Phillip Vanderploeg, an American actor who moved to Tokyo for a toothpaste commercial but now scrapes by working for a unique service. This company hires out people to fill roles in clients' lives, whether as a funeral mourner or a stand-in friend.
A Role That Mirrors Real-Life Resilience
The film, written and directed by Hikari (known for work on Netflix's Beef), finds profound depth in its unusual premise. Phillip's most significant assignment comes when he is hired by Hitomi (Shino Shinozaki) to play the absent father for her daughter, Mia (Shannon Gorman), to help with a school application.
Fraser brings a weathered, authentic gravity to the role, with the parallels between the actor's own career arc and his character's search for purpose adding considerable weight. Director Hikari and cinematographer Takuro Ishizaka visually emphasise Phillip's displacement, framing him against the Tokyo backdrop where he never quite fits in.
An Affirming Story for the Holiday Season
While the screenplay by Hikari and Stephen Blahut flirts with sentimentality, it ultimately lands as a sincere exploration of human connection and honesty. The film doesn't shy away from darker parallels, subtly drawing a line between this form of emotional performance and other hired intimacies like sex work.
However, Rental Family remains a fundamentally uplifting experience. It celebrates the small, genuine connections that can blossom in the most fabricated of circumstances. For Fraser, this role is another step in a remarkable comeback, with the actor listed in five upcoming features for 2026. For audiences, it's a chance to see a consummate professional, widely known in industry circles as a genuinely good person, deliver a performance that resonates with hard-earned truth.
