Some of the most impactful works of fiction have been born out of directors and writers self-inserting their real-life experiences and flaws into their lead characters. Just ask revolutionary author and activist Toni Morrison, who described our ordinary everyday lives as “already artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art”, or Nora Ephron, the queen of the romantic-comedy, who famously argued that “everything is copy”.
Japanese filmmaker HIKARI’s approach to storytelling follows the same idea. “It’s all about my experiences,” she explains to me from a hotel room in London when I chat with her over Zoom.
HIKARI, born Mitsuyo Miyazaki in Osaka, made her directorial debut in 2011 after moving to the U.S. Since then, she’s won several awards, directed three episodes of Netflix’s smash hit series Beef, and directed, produced, and wrote the original drama 37 Seconds (about a 23-year-old girl navigating sex with cerebral palsy). Her latest film, Rental Family, is a comedy-drama that releases in Australian cinemas on Boxing Day.
Rental Family stars Brendan Fraser (in his first film appearance since winning Best Actor at the 2023 Academy Awards for The Whale) as American expat Phillip, whose successful but unfulfilling career playing the token white guy in Japanese commercials has finally run dry after seven years. Phillip’s at a crossroads in both his personal life and career when he’s unknowingly connected with a local “rental family” agency that recruits actors to fulfil real-life roles in their clients’ lives: to fill a chair at a loved one’s funeral, cheer them on at Karaoke, or accompany them to a parent-teacher interview.
HIKARI isn’t white, male, or American-born, but like Phillip, she knows all about feeling isolated or out of place as a stranger in another country. As a child, the storyteller says her big ambitions made her desperate to leave Japan, and that opportunity came in the form of a high school exchange program in a small town in Utah. The experience changed the trajectory of her life, and within nine months of being back home in Japan, she was packing her bags for a return to the States.
Since relocating to the U.S., and even now, as she approaches 50, HIKARI says she is often in spaces where she is “the only or one of the few filmmakers who are female or Asian or of colour”. “What I’ve learned [from this experience], whether good or bad, always goes into the picture,” she explains. But instead of dwelling on the negative experiences she’s had, HIKARI is determined to “flip that energy” and channel it into a more positive takeaway.
“Even when you’re the only one, and you feel isolated at first, there’s always going to be… the friends that become your family. The community that you create,” she remarks. “All you have to do is keep your eyes open and see who is there.”
Found family is unsurprisingly a massive theme in Rental Family, which will likely expose many Western audiences to Japan’s rental family industry for the first time. It might be hard to believe, but the industry has existed in Japan for decades.
“I always knew about the rent-a-lap, cuddling, or rent-a-girlfriend services [that existed] growing up,” HIKARI tells Missing Perspectives.
It wasn’t until more recently, however, that she learned about the rental family business in a conversation with her writing partner Stephen Blahut. Its unconventional nature very quickly became the inspiration for her latest feature film about connection and belonging.
Phillip, her protagonist, is “very sceptical [of the rental family industry] at first”. He gets cold feet when hired to stand in as the older American groom “marrying” a young Japanese woman. The woman believes her only way to secure freedom and independence from her family is to convince them she’s married. At first, Phillip is unconvinced that this deceit is necessary, but as he gains more clients and learns to set aside his own bias, he soon comes to appreciate the varied and complex reasons a person might seek out a stranger like him to role-play someone missing from their life. And over the course of Rental Family, Phillip, a loner himself, begins to benefit from the roles he plays for others (father, friend, peer). The roles might be fake, but his relationships with them are genuine.
In Rental Family, HIKARI explores what the loneliness epidemic can look like in one of the world’s busiest and most densely populated cities, and bravely asks whether emerging, albeit unconventional, services like the rental family business can help bring us closer together. In the end, she doesn’t offer a final verdict or endorsement of the industry. But by extending her empathy and curiosity to its imagined clientele, she gives her audience permission to reflect on the relationships and connections they’ve long wished for or feel they missed out on.
Now, of course, the loneliness epidemic isn’t a uniquely Japanese problem. “It’s happening everywhere,” says HIKARI. Experts agree that increasing levels of loneliness and isolation are “a global public health concern” with profound and genuine consequences on “individual and societal health”. And in 2017, former United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy even claimed that “the mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”
Back in 2021, Japan appointed its first-ever Minister for Loneliness, making it the second government in the world to designate a leader responsible for tackling widespread feelings of isolation and disconnection in national policy. HIKARI believes her home country is particularly impacted by loneliness because of the many “little [cultural] rules” that dictate how locals interact in public spaces.
In Japan, silence is deliberately used to show respect and protect harmony in shared spaces. Just ask any of the nearly one million Australians who visited Japan last year, and they’ll happily marvel with envy over how quiet Japanese locals are on the streets and on public transport compared to back home. Nearly all of the hundreds of TikToks I consumed before visiting Japan earlier this year warned me that, unlike in many Western countries, answering a phone call or starting up a conversation with your friend while commuting aboard Tokyo’s comprehensive rail network is broadly frowned upon.
This has long been the case, but HIKARI fears that “people are not speaking verbally as much as they used to”. “In Japanese culture, harmony is more important than voicing your own opinion, and that can make a lot of people feel suppressed,” warns Hikari. “This can lead to depression. People want to connect with people, but they can’t.”
Naturally, presentations of loneliness vary in severity. However, national data suggest that, at the more extreme end, up to 1.5 million adolescents and adults in Japan are choosing to live as social recluses. The ‘hikikomori’, as they’re called, physically isolate themselves at home for at least six months, do not engage in social relationships, and have stopped attending school or work. It’s not believed that these individuals are necessarily experiencing psychosis, but are instead impacted by their country’s rigid social norms and culture of shame.
That’s why Phillip’s story is so important. “I want to share my idea of how we can see life in a different light,” says HIKARI. “Hopefully, everybody can live through Phillip’s shoes, and then when the movie ends, they can look back and say, ‘Okay, what’s missing in my life? Have I spoken to that person? Have I said hi to my Mom?”
Rental Family hits cinemas in Australia on Boxing Day.
Top photo – Pictured: Director HIKARI on the set of RENTAL FAMILY, Source: James Lisle/Searchlight Pictures. © 2025 Searchlight Pictures. All Rights Reserved.