Rental Family Ending Finally Explained: Brendan Fraser Reveals the Real Meaning Behind the Final Scene
Rental Family builds to a quietly shocking finale: after Philip bids farewell to retired actor Kikuo Hasegawa, the shrine where Kikuo once prayed yields not a deity or trinket, but a startling revelation that reframes Brendan Fraser’s assignment — and their bond.
I went into Rental Family expecting a quirky premise and a big, sentimental swing. What the movie actually does at the end is smaller, calmer, and smarter. It sneaks up on you, then lands a final image that says everything without saying much at all.
- Title: Rental Family
- Release: November 21, 2025
- Runtime: 110 minutes
- Director: Hikari
- Main cast: Brendan Fraser (Philip Vandarploeug), Takehiro Hira (Shinji Tada), Mari Yamamoto (Aiko), Akira Emoto (Kikuo Hasegawa)
- Rotten Tomatoes: 88% critics, 96% audience
What this thing is
It is a comedy-drama about Philip Vandarploeug (Brendan Fraser), an American actor in Tokyo who takes gigs with a 'rental family' agency. He pretends to be whatever a client needs: a dad, a partner, a friend. It starts as performance and paycheck, then drifts into something real. The movie is basically about how fake roles can leave real fingerprints.
The road to that last shot
Two relationships steer the back half.
First, Mia. Philip is hired to play her absentee father. Even after he starts to care about her for real, he ghosts when the assignment ends. When she figures out he was acting the whole time, they meet again. Instead of the screaming match you expect, they choose something gentler: they reintroduce themselves as friends. It is the movie showing you quiet forgiveness instead of a blow-up, and it works better than it sounds.
Then there is Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), a retired actor Philip befriends on a job. Against Kikuo's family's wishes, Philip takes him back to his hometown to chase memories. Kikuo falls, Philip gets hauled in for kidnapping, and the whole mess only clears when the rental agency steps in to explain. Kikuo later dies, and this is the pivot: Philip actually shows up for the funeral. He skipped his own father's, and the movie makes that connection explicit. It is the cleanest sign of growth he gets, and Hikari doesn’t chase a grand finale after that, just stillness and a sense that Philip has stopped running from himself.
The shrine, the mirror, and why it matters
After the funeral, Philip visits the shrine Kikuo used to pray at. No statue, no deity, no big reveal. It is a mirror. A small visual trick, but a pointed one. Earlier in the film, Kikuo talks about divinity being something you find within, not above. The mirror makes that literal.
Fraser sells the moment with a simple smile. Philip has been treating himself like a replaceable extra all movie long — the token white guy at the agency, good enough to fill a role and vanish. Facing that mirror, he finally sees what other people have been seeing: he mattered to Mia, to Kikuo, to the coworkers who had his back. That last image is not just for him. It is the movie nudging you to check your own blind spots.
The ending that wasn’t the ending (and how they found it)
Takehiro Hira, who plays Shinji Tada, the rental agency boss, says the shrine wasn’t the original ending. They found it later, and he calls the change 'brilliant' — a better match for the story’s emotional logic. That tracks with what Brendan Fraser says about Hikari discovering the movie in the edit.
"Well, remember that he was told by Kikuo San to go take a look at the shrine when he asked, 'What’s in there?' and he responded, 'Maybe later.' So after the story plays out, he does go to the shrine, and he does make a transformation, and he makes a discovery, an epiphany, even not only was the old man right, and you got me from the great beyond, but I am in there. I was enough all along. I didn’t need to doubt myself. I’m gonna be okay going forward. That’s what I always believed it to be."
Mari Yamamoto (Aiko) adds a nice angle: when love is honest and deep, it can feel spiritual. If someone can love you that much, there has to be something worth worshipping in you too. The mirror fits that idea perfectly.
Why the final beat lands
No fireworks, no grand speech. Just a man looking at himself and finally, finally liking what he sees. Oscar winner Brendan Fraser underplays it, and the restraint is the point. It completes the loop: Philip arrives lost, leaves grounded, and the movie trusts a quiet look to say the loudest thing.
Rental Family is currently playing in theaters in the U.S.