Plot Summary (Rental Family) Rental Family
Phillip is a washed-up American actor stuck in Tokyo
Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser) is an American actor living in Tokyo whose career peaked with a toothpaste commercial and has since stalled. Broke, isolated, and drifting through failed auditions, he stumbles into work with Rental Family — a Japanese agency that hires actors to play stand-in relatives, partners, or friends for clients who need connection. His boss Shinji (Takehiro Hira) and colleague Aiko (Mari Yamamoto) guide him into a world where performance and genuine human need blur together.
His first major assignment is a sham wedding for a closeted woman
Phillip's first significant job is posing as the fiance of Yoshie (Misato Morita), a woman staging a fake wedding to convince her parents she is moving abroad — a cover story so she can reunite with her true partner, a woman. The assignment forces Phillip into a morally ambiguous space: he is helping Yoshie live authentically, but through an elaborate deception of her family.
A single mother hires him to play a father for her daughter
Hitomi (Shino Shinozaki), a single mother, hires Phillip to pose as Mia's (Shannon Mahina Gorman) father. Mia is a half-Japanese girl trying to get into a prestigious private school that disfavors single-parent families. What begins as a transactional arrangement deepens as Phillip and Mia form a genuine bond — he becomes emotionally invested in this girl who needs a father figure, and she begins to see him as real.
An elderly client takes him on a road trip into the past
The most emotionally resonant storyline involves Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), a retired actor with dementia. Phillip is assigned to befriend Kikuo, posing as a journalist. When Kikuo expresses a wish to revisit his past, Phillip — still in character — takes him on an unauthorized road trip to his old home, against his daughter Masami's (Sei Matobu) wishes. They spend a night in a small cabin in the woods. The next morning, Kikuo digs up a buried tin of letters and photographs from his first love — a connection to his past that his fading memory is trying to hold onto.
Kikuo dies and Phillip attends a real funeral
Kikuo dies in his sleep. Phillip attends his real funeral, no longer performing a role but genuinely grieving a man he came to care about. The funeral marks the turning point where Phillip can no longer pretend his work is just acting. The connections he has formed are real, and the losses are real too.
Phillip stays at Rental Family with a deeper understanding
The film does not end with Phillip leaving the agency or exposing it. He continues his work at Rental Family, but with a changed understanding of what he is doing. The film's conclusion argues that purpose, belonging, and connection come not from performance but from presence, empathy, and showing up for people — even when the framework that brought you together was artificial.