Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, my friends, and welcome back to another episode of Movie Deputy Reviews. We are talking about the Movie Rental Family. It was recently in the theaters and it stars Brendan Fraser in Japan.
If that jogs your memory a little bit to some trailers you might have seen, awesome. If not, you're good. You want to stick around because we are going to be sharing the trailer for this here shortly.
And this one is. This one is just pausing for a moment there because I don't want to give anything too much away on that.
This is. This movie is very touching in a lot of ways. It does go a. It does go a little woke in some ways, but it's minor. It is minor. On that, I will say I have really been struggling on whether or not to give this an innocent or a guilty rating.
Overall, I am going good to go with an innocent rating on this because the few more. The few little instances of inappropriateness and I will touch on those a little bit in case that that's something that you want to maybe avoid because of these particular scenes that I'll be talking about in a minute.
So I just want to kind of just preface that. Like I said, I am giving Rental Family an innocent rating, but I'm also going to warn a few people about some of the scenes that you might be. That you might encounter should you care to see this.
Now, I came into this with zero pre nothing. Like, I. I had seen like one preview in the theater before another movie started, and I was like, okay, it's like, what. I mean, where is this gonna go? Because I've always been a big Brendan Fraser fan. Just personally, I was like, okay, this is gonna date me a little bit. But his George of the Jungle days, which even predate the whole Mummy days and things like that. And there is a lot of speculation about another Mummy movie. I don't know what to think about that. So if you're going to bombard me with questions on that, at least I'm prepared. But I'm just going to just kind of save you a lot of time and effort right now. I don't know. I've seen some buzz about it online, but I do do not know. So unfortunately, I can't answer those questions. I just want to preface that a little bit ahead of time. But the most recent thing I've seen him in was the whale, and that was.
I mean, that was about as bad as it gets. That was easily on, like the 10 worst movies of the year. Last of the last year. When that came out, it was just in every way imaginable. I mean, it was just, it was woke, it was grotesque, it was obscene.
And so I was like going, please don't be like that.
And yeah, that was kind of literally my reaction. It's like, I really hope this one isn't like that at all. And I'm sorry, my allergies are acting up, so my nose is itchy. So if you see me doing that, that's what that's about. So I apologize in advance.
But I want to show you the poster that I had. As you can see here, over on the side is the poster. If you are listening to the podcast, please feel free to come over to check out our YouTube channel because you can, you can get the whole facial expressions. What I'm just, I'm describing to you. And so you get to see the smiles and the upbeat, but you also get to see the grotesque type face, facial expressions. And then you also get to see what I'm doing, like with the poster. Like the one that you can see right now on the screen on our YouTube is the theatrical poster for this or one of them. And I'm about to show the. What I changed for it for the podcast image.
I just kind of shrunk it down. And then throughout the movie, Japan is very big on its cherry blossoms, the cherry trees. And so it took a shade from the cherry, from. From the blossoms of the cherry trees. And I kind of did just a light haze all over that just to kind of soften it a little bit. So again, this is the poster. And you notice it's just a kind of a stark white background with the images on there. And then with this, it just has that slight pinkish tone to it just ever so slightly, just to kind of soften it up a little bit.
So I just, I try to do something a little bit different. Sometimes I change them a lot, sometimes just a little bit. And this one was just a very minor change with just cropping it down into the square shape. But before we get into this, a whole lot more. And don't worry, I'm going to give you the score here shortly. Let's go ahead and look at the trailer for this.
Now, if you've already caught the first few seconds, you may be wondering what that's all about.
Well, it was one of the many roles that he plays over in Japan. Over in Japan, Philip, and that is his character's name, is a struggling actor. And one of his breakthrough roles in Japan was in a toothpaste commercial. So that was the very beginning that you Saw here.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: The market here isn't the same anymore. It's half the rate, twice the work.
But I got you a gig and the pay is actually pretty good.
[00:05:09] Speaker C: What's my part?
[00:05:14] Speaker D: So what do you think we do?
We sell emotion.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: How?
[00:05:19] Speaker D: We play roles in clients, lives, parents, siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends. And help them connect to what's missing.
[00:05:28] Speaker C: I'm just an actor. I don't know how to help people.
[00:05:30] Speaker D: What I'm offering here is a chance to play roles with real meaning.
[00:05:34] Speaker C: What do you need me for?
[00:05:36] Speaker D: We need a talking white guy.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: In the heart of Japan. And you're looking for a role for a talking white guy? I think Brendan Fraser could fill that role pretty well.
[00:05:50] Speaker D: Girl needs a father.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: Hi Mia. I'm your father. I'm your father.
Hello, Mia. I'm your father.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: I hate you.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: She hates me.
[00:06:02] Speaker D: It's what being a parent is.
You could live in this country for hundred years and there will still be things you won't understand.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: Why do you do this?
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Sometimes the story we tell ourselves becomes the truth. Truth to her parents, you are her husband.
These people look at you like they've been waiting for you their whole lives.
And what you'll discover is that they stay with you.
[00:06:47] Speaker C: This is amazing.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: It's cool, but it's fake.
[00:06:51] Speaker C: You know, sometimes it's okay to pretend.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: And that's just really kind of an important thing with the big message with this movie.
And there's a line in there that just kind of really hit home to me because I'm going to open up with a little bit, a little bit of myself here. But I struggle with a lot of self esteem issues. I struggle with a lot of self worth issues.
I every. A lot of people around me see me as this strong, brave person.
And behind the scenes I break down a lot. I just, I try to put on a brave face. And I'm one of the people I tried to feed. Okay, I'm. I'm one of two ways. I'm either one of the warmest, kindest people you'll ever meet or people say I am a cold hearted insert expletive.
So it's kind of a mixed bag. But I tend to match people's energy. So if you come at me with that type of energy that I'm gonna match it. So it's kind of like those little skits and stuff you see on social media. So far they batch people's energy. Except I was doing that long before it was a trend.
And honestly that's kind of what Philip does A little bit here and it's.
There's a. Such an important line in here. Sometimes all we need is somebody to look us in the eyes and remind us that we have. That there's some worth to us. That's not the exact line. Here, let me look at my phone.
It's.
I should have had this memorized.
Sometimes all we need is for someone to look us in the eye and remind us that we exist.
That might. That might sound silly to some people, but to understand that we exist isn't just our own existence. It's how we exist in other people's lives. And honestly that is the heart of this movie. Philip plays these roles. He's hired to play these roles as a dad or as a.
A boyfriend or as a companion or as insert umpteen other roles that he plays in this.
And he has to match the energy of these families. He has to become a dad, he has to become a spouse. He has to become all of these different things to all of these different people because they're missing something in their lives. He has to be a best friend. And in Japan they have the. Some services where you can rent people to. To participate in your lives. I don't know to the level of depths of that, but I do know that they can rent. One of the scenes that's played out here is more of an adult thing of an apologist. And I can't really explain a whole lot what that is without spoiling part of the movie.
But he. He's not directly involved with that. But some people, some other characters in the movie are. And that's kind of an adult situation that kind of goes a little wok to infidelity and things like that. There is also a lesbian relationship with some emotion and affection that is shown on screen.
And there is a little bit of hinting that it's not necessarily up to the parents to raise their children, but for the government and the schools to raise their children.
Which. That really kind of rubbed me wrong just for personal reasons.
But as a whole, the movie is very wholesome, very sweet.
It's just you get kind of look around kind of some of the other stuff that's going on on screen. Now you may be wondering, the people on the poster here off to the side, these are some key characters in the movie along with Philip. And Philip of course is Brendan Fraser. So score wise, you may be wondering where I came in with Rental Family. Well, I came in with Rental family at a 6.5 out of 10 on the deputy scale. Honestly, it probably would have been mid sevens had it not been for some of the woke elements that I had on screen.
I don't, I don't think it added anything to the story. I think it probably would have been even better without.
So. But that's going to be up for you, for you to decide if those things don't bother you at all. Maybe you might give this a higher ranking.
It's a little corny, It's a little silly.
It's this, this movie is not going to be for everybody. This one is.
It's aimed probably at young, young parents or couples in their 20s, 30s, etc, maybe college age, a little bit depending on what their interests are. And maybe a little bit of an older generation as well, because there's a very nostalgic part of the story that is told here. And I'll definitely say take, bring your tissues because there's a few parts in this that you will definitely need your tissues for.
So is this going to be one for you?
That's going to be for you to decide. I like that. I found that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I was going to because I, like I said, I came in with pretty much zero expectations and so that at least I tried to measure it out with that. There are some very important things of this story that will stick with you long after the credits are done. And there are some parts that might make you roll your eyes too. So. But I mean that's with just about any film. Nothing. As I always say, there's no such thing as a perfect movie.
But as always, I hope that you have enjoyed this adventure and I hope that you want to stick around for more. So please like subscribe and share for the latest and greatest movie Deputy content Again, we've got some amazing things coming up next next month. Sorry, I'm still here. It's like we're at the end of November. I'm like, yeah, we're not in December yet because we've got Thanksgiving coming up in a couple days.
Yeah, I can't believe how fast this year has been going.
But as always, I will be back on Wednesday with Zootopia 2 for you. So you don't want to miss that. So be sure to come check that out. And I can't wait to talk to you soon. Bye Bye.
