An American actor in Tokyo struggles to find purpose until he lands an unusual gig: working for a Japanese 'rental family' agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. As he immerses himself in his clients' worlds, he begins to form genuine bonds that blur the lines between performance and reality.
1 take · 0 hearts · 0 replies
As I was watching this, it made me think of Rear Window. Not the Hitchcock/ James Stewart version but the one with Christopher Reeve. That film is so tragic in so many ways. There is such a permanence to the otherness and helplessness of the main character that adds so much depth of emotion that the original just can’t compare to. And just like that film, our main character here has this permanent otherness. Even if he lived in Japan the rest of his life and became completely ingrained in the culture, he would still always be “Gaijin”. When we see Philip looking out the window and finding joy in the examination of life, I recalled seeing Christopher Reeve looking out his window and finding a similar feeling. The beauty of that invisible connection that binds everyone is the heart of this movie. There was a Christopher Reeve quote that rolled around in my head the whole time I was watching this: