Any culture has idiosyncrasies, but the Japanese are on a whole different level, and pretty much take the cake. Whether it’s women dressed up as French maids who serve customers (mostly grown men) and call them “master”, nightly robot boxing, or cute cats running train stations, you can just go and take your pick.

The impenetrability of Japanese culture has always been one of its most defining qualities. There’s an undercurrent of mystery, a mystique that sits just below the sushi, neon lights, and ubiquitous anime characters. As a character in the film says at one point, “You can live here a hundred years, and there will still be things you won’t understand.”

The film, Rental Family, features one such quirk. Brendan Fraser plays Phillip, an American actor who came to Japan and gained fame and notoriety as the lead hero in a much-loved toothpaste commercial. Fast forward seven years, and now he’s been taking odd or low-paying roles just to get by.

Through his agent, he happens upon the Rental Family, a company that rents out actors to play roles in people’s lives. The owner, Shinji (Takehiro Hira), pitches to Phillip that they don’t sell people, they sell emotion, then asks him to come on board as a token white guy.

Without other options, Phillip accepts and finds that he is in for more than he bargained for, with several surprises along the way.

The idea of hiring someone to role-play a girlfriend, best friend, or spouse is anathema to most non-Japanese. Understandably, the argument is that it isn’t real and that you essentially pay for someone to play pretend with you for a few hours.

The movie makes a case for such a service, arguing that it is often a form of therapy, helping clients fulfill a fantasy, save face, or just feel normal. It brings to mind our own Phil-Chinese tradition of professional mourners hired to give the deceased a loud send off.

But director Hikari also doesn’t shy away from the darker side of the social phenomenon. When things get a little bit too real, emotions can run high.

There’s a stillness to the film, something very haiku. It progresses but doesn’t rush you from one act to another, or from conflict to climax to resolution. And just when it starts to feel stagnant or predictable, Hikari and co-screenwriter Stephen Blahun manage to provide genuinely surprising twists that lead the story in a new direction.

One can’t help but think of other films about foreigners in Japan, such as Lost in Translation or the hilarious Mr. Baseball. But while the leads of those films had somewhere to return to, Fraser’s character has been in Japan for a while, and we are given no indication that anything else awaits him elsewhere.

Fraser is excellent as a fish out of water, trying desperately to belong and fit in even after living in Tokyo for so long. There’s an innocence about him that carries through each scene, an eagerness to please, to do right by his boss and his clients, making him the quintessential nice-guy.

It is ironic that in Tokyo, one of the largest urban areas in the world, it is surprisingly easy for someone to be terribly lonely. Whether you agree with the practice of people renting or not, are indifferent, or perhaps find it simply bizarre, the movie opens a window to that corner of the world in a respectful way.

What Phillip offers others is the same thing he’s been looking for, even if he may not be as aware of it as his clients are. In the end, the movie is about connection. It is about being part of someone’s life and inviting them into yours.