In director Sofia Coppola’s modern classic, Lost in Translation, Bill Murray plays an American in Tokyo suffering from loneliness and navigating a fading career. Director Hikari’s Rental Family is also about an American in Tokyo suffering from loneliness and a fading career. Where Coppola crafted a hallucinatory relationship drama that floated in an otherworldly state of perpetual jet lag, Hikari (creator of the Netflix series Beef) prefers to wrap her melancholy message in a more mainstream package. That doesn’t mean real emotions aren’t being explored. It just means they need to wend through the gears of its plot machinery before finding their way to your tear ducts. But they'll get there, thanks in large part to a wistful and understated performance by Brendan Fraser.

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