Recently, I saw a trailer of the film named ‘Rental Family’, and it sounded so absurd that I immediately decided to give it a try. Our protagonist, Philip, is an actor living in Japan and plays a colleague to whoever hires him. He plays a dad for hire, a husband to a lesbian, a podcaster to an elderly man. All you have to do is to pay him, he shows up, he does his part and leaves.
But in reality, one might think, who would do such a thing? Or firstly, who would need such a thing? Of course, the demand comes first.
Moving forward, Philips is not a fraud. He is literally good at his thing, maybe extra good. He performs it so well, no matter what role he is given, that everyone believes it. Maybe even the hirer, too.
Throughout the movie, I just kept on thinking: are not we all already doing it?
We are disappearing from each other’s lives.
We live in an era of constant curation; we rent attention through likes, comments and subscribers. We align ourselves 5o those influencers who would not even know that we exist. We pay for therapy, in a world of eight-billion people, because we lack the informal sector’s support (Not a critique of therapy rather an observation). The neighbor, the friend you could call any time, even the parents or siblings. We are just disappearing from each other lives - and Marx named it “Rugged Individualism”.
The technological world promised us to connect; instead, it isolated us in ways, we are only beginning to see. We have hundreds of thousands of friends or followers online, but not a single pure human to help us in need. We can face call each other anytime, anywhere, yet we are lonelier than ever. Since the pandemic, there is a sharp surge in this social isolation. Because we learned to survive without physical proximity and now, we are stuck in that mode. And the fun part is we have no idea how to undo it.
So why would not you rent a companion? Why would not you pay someone to sit across you at dinner, or to laugh at your jokes? Sounds weird and funny but this is the truth. At least, this way, you know what you are achieving. Like there is no ghosting, no wondering whether they like you or not, without any anxiety of missing out. You are getting what you want, nothing less, nothing more.
The movie depicts this more than anything, which is a reality nowadays. As an example, the daughter rents the protagonist for her elderly father so that he can listen to his stories. Because she does not have the time to listen to his father. Or the gay woman, who is afraid to accept her reality.
They are not pathetic; they are just lonely. And this loneliness is a social one, not a personal failure.
Personally, everything by far still sounds normal. However here is what haunts me - what will happen if we accept that connection as a new normal? What will happen when we will be able to purchase artificial connection and not build real relations?
If I talk about this in our context, where family structures are already under strain. Joint family systems, which used to be the essence of our culture, are in constant decay. Although it does have the goodness in it, but it is resulting in strange isolation. My grandparents never knew that a feeling like loneliness even existed, a generation ago. Why? Because they were never alone - for better or worse. They were always surrounded by positive noises, family, people, or neighbors.
Shallow Independence
What we have truly gained is shallow independence. Anx in doing so, we have lost the spark, the connection and the balanced approach. We want independence but at the same time, we also want someone to notice us. We want space still crave for attention. The mighty technology promised us this and it has provided, but we are lost in the constant loophole.
The danger is not that the Rental Family will become real, because they probably already exist in some form. The problem is that we will accept them as the inevitable. Calling it as another premium subscription of life, just dealing with it as the new era. The era of rental!
In the end, maybe the film is not about a dystopian future; maybe it is just about recognition. If we are honest, we have been living with rented leadership long enough to know exactly how hollow it feels.
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Do mention your thoughts🤔💭
Peace 🕊