Brendan Fraser returns to the Toronto International Film Festival with “ Rental Family ,” a tender new drama co-written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Hikari that explores unconventional bonds and the meaning of belonging.

Fraser, who last appeared at TIFF with Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” (2022) — the role that won him an Academy Award — said the project immediately struck him as unlike anything else in his career.

“It was so far removed from anything I had seen,” Fraser says. “The story is an unusual way to fulfill the needs of people who are bereft of family. And it felt like a film without a villain per se — apart from apathy. That speaks to us at this time.”

The film follows Fraser’s character, Philip Vanderplug, an outsider adrift in Tokyo who becomes entwined in Japan’s

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