26/01/2026
magine a world where you can rent out a family for yourself.
Need a husband for a wedding, when your family doesn't accept, understand, or know about your sexual orientation?. Yes, you got it. Need a father for your daughter as a single mom? When you don't want to bring the biological father into the situation, you've got it. So this is the world where, in short, you can rent belonging (actors who can play any role you want them to play in your real lives).
This was the premise of the recent Japanese movie I watched called " The Rented Family." I am not here to speak about whether the concept is right or wrong; this is basically about how something like this affects humans.
What first appears as an unusual and bizarre concept slowly begins to feel like a subtle commentary on modern loneliness.
Because, at the core of the movie isn't the deception or fakery of these relationships; instead, it's about the "unmet emotional needs" of the characters, aka people.
How does even such a relationship impact their life, or does it have an impact at all?.
It raised an important question in my mind, "If a connection is structured but the comfort felt is real, does the heart experience it as real or fake?"
The lines blur when real emotions are felt amongst people, even in such a transactional setting.
Their choices (of renting a family) were not about pretending life was perfect, but they were about surviving emotional emptiness in a seemingly disconnected world.
The deeper question the film left me with was: The society we are all part of can take humans to outsource the sense of belonging anyday (If such a service is available, there would be takers). Today, the loneliness epidemic is real and affects 1 in 6 people, as a profound sense of disconnection
As a psychologist myself, it made me think,
How we create safe spaces personally and collectively for people to be real, seen, and imperfect can make a great deal of impact in their lives. And this will help to build communities where the sense of belonging doesn't have to be borrowed but where it can be lived, imperfectly but authentically.
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