Ever fancied an extra family member or new best friend supplied on demand and available for as long as required? Ever dreamt you could summon up a surrogate to explain yourself out of an awkward romantic entanglement, or a presentable spouse to secure an employment opportunity (like Alan Partridge’s rented wife in the ‘Hamilton Water Breaks’ episode)? All of this, and more, is readily available in Japan, for a fee, courtesy of the ‘companionship agencies’. This decidedly odd business is the subject of the film Rental Family currently on release across the UK.
The film, directed by the mononymous ‘Hikari’ and starring Brendan Fraser, tells the story of a struggling American actor in Tokyo who chances upon an agency that supplies surrogate family members or companions to the lonely, or otherwise in need. The film focusses on two long-running contracts with particular moral complexities: a stand-in ‘father’ for a little girl so that with her single mother a happy family front can be presented at a crucial interview for a prestigious school; and a companion (posing as a journalist writing a biographical article) for a famous actor in his final days.
It’s a film about faking it then, so how real is it? According to the director and Fraser, very. Hikari claims there are around 300 such agencies in Japan that can supply you with pretty much whoever you require to fill an emotional gap in your life or deal with a specific social problem. It is claimed the business began in earnest in 1991 with the launch of the first ‘companion service,’ the Japan Efficiency Corporation (though some doubt this company ever actually operated).
Understandably, clients of such services are reluctant to admit to it, so some doubt as to the extent of the business persists. But I can offer a little evidence – for I have dipped my toe in this make-believe world. I once applied for a job as a fake Catholic priest in Tokyo. Had I taken up the position, I would have posed as Father Patrick, cassock and all, and conducted a purely theatrical Christian wedding for Japanese couples who fancied a taste of a full-blown ‘Western Wedding’ as a more romantic (and perhaps more fun) supplement to the rather austere Shinto ceremony.
In one of the weirdest experiences of my life, I attended a bizarre interview in a garage/office in the Tokyo suburb of Ikebukuro. The cramped space was stuffed full of piled up Christian paraphernalia (crosses, lambs, rosaries, statues of Mary – all of it plastic). I watched a video of the agency’s star performer reading the service in ‘koten,’ (ancient and incomprehensible Japanese), which had to be memorized – a considerable feat. ‘Pay attention to his intonation,’ instructed the manager, ‘Has it come to this?’ I wondered to myself.
Reader, I married no one. I was troubled by moral qualms and concerned about the risk of corpsing (high) and the possibility (low but nightmarish) of coming face-to-face with an ex-girlfriend approaching me down the aisle, (though what an anecdote that would have been!). I passed on the opportunity but have friends who do this work and are thankful for a lucrative side hustle.
In Rental Family Philip struggles with his conscience too. ‘I can’t do this. It’s fake’ he protests when discovered by a colleague hiding in a bathroom just before his ‘wedding’. His Japanese colleagues are incredulous and enraged, seeing the whole business on a purely practical level. They are providing a service to a client, a very important service, and in Japan the customer is God, and thus infallible.
Once he has played his part, the actor can be simply dismissed
Some may wonder why there appears to be such a demand for this sort of thing in Japan. The main motivations for the Rental Family clients seem to be either loneliness or excruciatingly difficult etiquette problems. Social isolation is a huge problem in Japan, partly a result of a work-obsessed culture where there just isn’t time to cultivate relations. This is compounded by the stultifying rules of etiquette that make casual meet-ups incredibly difficult to engineer and friendships difficult to initiative or develop.
In this environment the attractiveness of a short cut to a people problem is clear. And crucially the services of a Rental Family agency can be easily terminated. This is important as there is nothing the Japanese dread more than open-ended obligations. In Tokyo it is rare to see neighbours hailing each other, as there is a tacit rule that you never introduce yourself, as to do so once would oblige you to do so every time, for ever. You could live next door to someone for decades and never say hello, by mutual unspoken agreement.
For the mother needing a ‘partner’ for a specific assignment, a quick call to an agency is, therefore, an appealing option. Once he has played his part, the actor can be simply dismissed. No messy, clingy, emotional entanglements. It’s not a wholly appropriate comparison but as someone once said: you don’t pay prostitutes to sleep with you, you pay them to leave afterwards (though in the film Philip does use a prostitute).
Except it doesn’t quite work out that way. I won’t spoil things by explaining why. Suffice to say that separating the professional from the personal proves difficult, even in hyper-practical streamlined Japan. Watch the film.
Since I watched Rental Family – twice, I have become even more disorientated than normal here in Tokyo. It always had a Truman show quality to it, but I now find myself wondering, as I sit here in a coffee shop in Iidabashi, whether the students, salarymen, housewives that surround me are who they appear to be.
And most disturbingly of all, I wonder whether I am who I say I am. Am I really a lecturer at a Japanese university?
Or am I just playing a part.
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