Here are review links for this film submitted by our members:
- Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Texan Reviews
- Excerpt: Rental Family takes a unique aspect of a different culture and gives us a universal story of the importance of human connection.
- Gregory Carlson @ southpawfilmworks.net
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The phenomenon has been made into a film before, but few have probably seen Werner Herzog’s 2019 “Family Romance, LLC”…like one of those sentimental films Miramax specialized in in the 90’s
- Mark Hobin @ Fast Film Reviews
- Excerpt: The kind of tender, quietly affecting story that gets overshadowed by the massive box-office hits at the cineplex. Yet it’s one of the warmest films families could share this season.
- Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
- Excerpt: It could have been stronger, but it still checks the necessary boxes to be an enjoyable feel-good movie with tearjerker elements.
- [New] | Jared Mobarak @ Hey, have you seen …?
- Excerpt: What was a cute premise about the act of helping curing the helper suddenly reveals the pain of silent manipulations. Before lying to alleviate your own frustration with a loved one’s needs, try asking what it is they truly desire.
- Marcio Sallem @ Cinema com Critica [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: The fourth wall is the name given to the imaginary separation between the stage and the audience in theater, and which in cinema (and audiovisual media in general) is represented by the screen. Breaking it has a set of consequences, but basically it involves a spectator, previously passive, within the cinematic work, making them active. But, even after involving the spectator, engaging them, embarrassing them, or questioning them, breaking the fourth wall is still a harmless device, as it does not cause major consequences or aftereffects in the real world. The eventual reflection or transformation of the spectator is not capable of changing the matter of the world; upon leaving the cinema or turning off the streaming service, everything remains the same. However, this is not what happens in the sensitive Rental Family, which discusses the Japanese market for actors for hire, contracted to perform in the real world—a curious service I had previously encountered in Family Romance, LLC (2019), by the German filmmaker Werner Herzog.
- Jeff Schaefer @ The Marquee Topic
- Excerpt: Brendan Fraser stars in Hikari’s Rental Family as a struggling actor living in Japan whose career is about to turn around when he accepts the role of being a father for a young girl so that she can get into a good school.
- Sebastian Zavala @ Cinencuentro.com [Spanish]
- Excerpt: It never becomes overly melodramatic or heavy-handed, and although it deals with shades of grey in some of the themes it touches on, it doesn’t delve too deeply into them, contenting itself with delivering a feel-good experience.
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