‘Rental Family’ release date and trailer: What we know about Brendan Fraser’s new movie and when it’s coming out

Brendan Fraser returns to the screen for his first lead role since 2022’s The Whale. Directed and co-written by Hikarie and set in Tokyo, Rental Family is a comedy which tells the story of an American actor who is down on his luck, struggling to find regular work in a market where wages have remained stagnant.

His agent finally finds him work. It’s well paid, but an unusual assignment and involves working abroad in a country with a completely different culture. It will also test his improvisation skills to the limit.

Brendan Fraser, the token white guy in Tokyo

Fraser’s character is sent to Tokyo where he is hired to play a variety of roles for people who have someone missing in their lives - a father, a boyfriend, a best friend... “helping them to connect to what’s missing”.

Fraser stars alongside Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamamoto, Akira Emoto and Shannon Gorman in Rental Family which hits theaters on November 21.

In some ways, the movie mirrors Fraser’s recent career. After revealing that he had been sexually assaulted by someone in the industry, work suddenly dried up for the 56-year-old, who sank into depression and retreated from the world. Added to that were health issues; he required a number of operations on his back, knee, vocal cords...

“I felt like the horse from Animal Farm,whose job it was to work and work and work. Orwell wrote a character who was, I think, the proletariat. He worked for the good of the whole, he didn’t ask questions, he didn’t make trouble until it killed him," he told GQ magazine in February 2018.

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