Directed by Japan’s monomonikered Hikari, “Rental Family” — a beautifully moving and affably humorous story of human connection — kicks off with one funeral and culminates with another, demonstrating the evolution that our protagonist, Philip (Brendan Fraser), goes through during his personal journey between these two events.
The first funeral is a shock. Philip is a struggling actor in Tokyo, with one massively successful commercial as a toothpaste superhero mascot under his belt. His agent has booked him a gig as “Sad American,” a role he can easily play with his looming height, doleful eyes and a heart he wears on his sleeve. Late as usual, he dashes to check in for work and is shocked to stumble into a somber funeral. He’s even more shocked when the formally dressed corpse starts emotionally reacting to the tearful eulogies.
The scene is a marvel of revelation and reaction from Fraser and, in fact, much of the genius of his performance in “Rental Family” comes from his reactions, especially as he discovers the weird and wonderful new job he’s landed.
In the screenplay by Hikari and Stephen Blahut, Philip finds himself working for Tada (Takehiro Hira), who runs a company called Rental Family that’s hired by clients to provide staff to role-play in various real-world scenarios — the fake funeral, for example, or as a mistress apologizing to a spurned wife or just for friendship. Philip’s first role is quite complex: He plays a Canadian man getting married to a young Japanese woman in a show wedding for her conservative parents. She’s queer and needs an out in order to be with her real partner. Philip, who is earnest and honest to a fault, chafes at the lie but soon realizes that he’s helping someone to live their authentic life, so he throws himself into it.
Rental Family’s service is all about maintaining Japanese values of propriety and politeness through performance, and the little (or big) white lies are manipulations to get what the clients want: an apology, companionship, love, admiration, closure. Philip’s most challenging high-wire act proves to be posing as the long-lost American father of a shrewd and emotionally intelligent young girl, Mia (Shannon Mahina Gorman), in order to secure her school admission. Both Philip and Mia’s mom (Shino Shinozaki), the client, soon realize that it’s much more complicated than just pretending to be a nuclear family for a school interview.
While playing daddy, Philip also juggles a role as a curious journalist profiling an aging, iconic (but largely forgotten) screen actor, Kikuo (Akira Emoto), from whom he learns surprising lessons about life, memory and legacy. He finds himself deeply connecting with these people, young and old, and learning from them, while becoming tangled in their lives.
Empathy pours off Fraser in waves, which is what made his Oscar-winning performance in “The Whale” work. Hikari channels that quality to good use in “Rental Family” but never oversteps. The film is sweet and affecting, never treacly or overly sentimental. She knows how to balance humor and poignancy, to allow Philip to be a grown man with his own needs and peccadilloes and mistakes, though we never question his motivations because of the inherent goodness that radiates off Fraser.
Hikari’s naturalistic style perfectly suits this story. The Tokyo that she showcases is one of quotidian everyday life, not the futuristic neon city that an outsider might capture. Hers is one of small, cramped apartments, karaoke bars, public transit, hotels, temples and schools. It’s a world occupied by normal people who sometimes need a little help, a little push to get the things they want in life. Philip is there to provide that service even though he’s also in need of his own connection to others.
But it’s the mishaps along the way that actually help Philip to grow. By the time we get to the second funeral, we see how much he has bloomed. Fraser has an openness to his expression that’s like a flower unfolding, beaming in the sunlight of recognition and personal fulfillment. As an actor, Fraser’s second act has been a sight to behold. He’s the emotional anchor of this life-affirming and quietly resonant film about the importance of being together — a movie that announces Hikari as a major talent.
Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.
‘Rental Family’
In Japanese and English, with subtitles
Rated: PG-13, for thematic elements, some strong language, and suggestive material
The longest U.S. government shutdown in history is over, but the fallout will continue to hit two groups particularly hard for months to come: federally funded defense lawyers and the people they represent.
Thousands of court-appointed lawyers, known as Criminal Justice Act panel attorneys, along with paralegals, investigators, expert witnesses and interpreters, haven’t been paid since June after federal funding for the Defender Services program fell $130 million short of what the judiciary requested and ran out July 3. They had been told they would receive deferred payment once Congress passed a new budget, but as the government shutdown dragged on, many couldn’t move forward with trials or take on new clients.
Nationally, CJA lawyers handle about 40% of cases in which the defendant cannot afford an attorney. As many cases have ground to a halt, defendants’ lives have been put on hold as they wait for their day in court. Meanwhile, the federal government has continued to arrest and charge people.
“The system’s about to break,” Michael Chernis, a CJA panel attorney in Southern California, said during the shutdown. He hasn’t taken new cases since August and had to take out a loan to make payroll for his law firm.
Unpaid defense team members in several states said they had to dip into their retirement savings or turn to gig work, such as driving for Uber, to support their families.
Panel attorneys should begin receiving payment as early as next week. Judge Robert Conrad, the director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, said in a Thursday memo that the resolution Congress passed to fund the government through Jan. 30 provided an extra $114 million for the Defender Services program “to address the backlog of panel attorney payments.”
But the crisis isn’t over. Conrad said a spending bill pending for the 2026 fiscal year is still $196 million short and funding is likely to run out to pay CJA panel attorneys next June.
The problem is particularly severe in the Central District of California, the largest and one of the most complex federal trial courts in the United States. Out of the approximately 100 such lawyers for the district, about 80 have stopped taking on new cases.
Chernis has a client who lives in Sacramento, but neither Chernis nor a court-appointed investigator have been able to cover the cost of travel to meet with him to discuss the case. The expert they need for the trial will also not agree to travel to Los Angeles to work on the case without payment, Chernis said.
In New Mexico, one judge halted a death penalty case, which is costly and labor-intensive to prepare, and at least 40 lawyers have resolved not to take on new cases even after the shutdown ended if the overall funding shortfall is not resolved.
California’s Central District Chief Judge Dolly Gee wrote in an Oct. 30 letter to Sen. Adam Schiff that the situation had become “dire.”
“These attorneys have sought delays in cases when they cannot find investigators and experts who are willing to work without pay, which has added to the court’s backlog of cases, and left defendants languishing in already overcrowded local prison,” Gee said. “Without additional funding, we will soon be unable to appoint counsel for all defendants who are constitutionally entitled to representation.”
She said judges may have to face the prospect of having to dismiss cases for defendants who can’t retain a lawyer.
Just hours before the government shutdown ended, Judge John A. Mendez in the Eastern District of California did, tossing out a criminal case against a man indicted on a charge of distribution of methamphetamine.
“The right to effective assistance of counsel is a bedrock principle of this country and is indisputably necessary for the operation of a fair criminal justice system,” Mendez wrote.
Everyone in the United States has the right to due process — including the right to legal counsel and a fair and speedy trial, guaranteed by the 5th and 6th Amendments.
Critics of the Trump administration have argued that it is chipping away at that right. Immigrant advocacy groups have made the allegation in multiple lawsuits. Most notably, they cite the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran-born man who was living with his family in Maryland when he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador and imprisoned at a notorious prison. He has since returned to the U.S., but he continues to face the threat of deportation as his case moves through the courts.
President Trump has been circumspect about his duties to uphold due process rights laid out in the Constitution, saying in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” in May that he does not know whether U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike deserve that guarantee.
The funding upheaval has delayed Christian Cerna-Camacho’s trial by at least three months. His lawyer said in court filings that one investigator, who has spent hours poring over body-camera recordings, news reports and social media content, was unable to do more work until he is paid.
Cerna-Camacho was arrested in June and is accused of punching a federal officer during a June 7 protest in Paramount against Trump’s immigration raids. He is out on bond but cannot find a construction job while he wears an ankle monitor because it poses a safety risk at the site, his attorney Scott Tenley wrote in a recent court filing.
David Kaloynides, a CJA panel attorney in Los Angeles, couldn’t even communicate with some of his clients during the shutdown because they speak only Spanish, and interpreters were not being paid. His caseload is full to the point where he’s scheduling trials in 2027, while many clients wait in jail, he said.
“We don’t do this appointed work because of the money; we do it because we’re dedicated,” Kaloynides said. “But we also can’t do it for free.”
At Sibos 2025, Gilly Wright, Global Finance’s Technology and Transaction Banking editor, interviews Isaac Kamuta, Group Head, Payments, Cash Management & Client Access at Ecobank, about its solutions for helping clients collect and make payments and manage liquidity, supporting their growth objectives within and across Africa.
Ecobank, which has consistently achieved recognition for excellence in cash management and the maintenance of client trust, provides a seamless unified network that simplifies operations for clients managing payments, collections, and liquidity across multiple markets in 33 African countries, as well as several locations outside the continent.
In the interview, Kamuta cites the bank’s significant investments, not just in technology but in providing technology-oriented to solutions for clients. “We have been able to build very good solutions that have served our clients well, especially when it comes to moving value across multiple countries,” he says.
For example, Ecobank’s Pan-African solutions, such as RapidCollect and virtual accounts, help businesses overcome payment challenges and capitalize on opportunities within the African Continental Free Trade Area, the world’s largest free trade area by number of countries.
“If you are a treasurer of a business that is present or doing business in multiple countries, you want a single connection to those countries directly, without having to go through third parties, which introduces friction and increases the cost of doing business.”
Isaac Kamuta, Group Head, Payments, Cash Management & Client Access at Ecobank
Watch the interview to find out more about how Ecobank’s focus on Pan-African payments helps clients maintain their competitive edge and achieve growth within the continent and beyond.
About 20 women are lying blindfolded on yoga mats in an airy structure in the Joshua Tree desert. Some are partially dressed in loungewear or lingerie; others are fully nude. Sexy indie folk music blasts from the sound system and outside, through the open double doors, the wind kicks up, rustling the fragrant desert scrub brush, pomegranate trees and ponderosa pines.
Their bodies are layered with a collage of fresh fruit, feathers, cucumber slices, smooth stones and velvety flower petals, among other things. Facilitators quietly tiptoe around the room, gently placing more and more items onto their chests, arms and legs until their skin is barely visible. One woman lies with lemon slices on her nipples, a large strawberry in her open mouth and a bouquet of long-stem pink roses, in full bloom, on her pelvis.
Facilitators adorn women’s bodies with colorful objects during an exercise about receiving pleasure and feeling beautiful.
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
The exercise is meant to help the women connect with their bodies by stimulating them with a spectrum of sensations: the cool slickness of a polished river stone or the prick of a pineapple rind. It’s about receiving pleasure and feeling beautiful — no matter your age, body shape or perceived limitations.
“The biological clock may be finite, but your sexuality — arousal — is infinite,” says the event’s host, Pamela Madsen, scattering rose petals on one attendee’s thighs.
Pamela Madsen, Back to the Body’s founder.
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
Welcome to Back to the Body, a sexual wellness retreat helping participants — all women — access their erotic selves. In this group, attendees are straight or bisexual and range in age from mid-30s to mid-70s. They’re mostly from around California, but some have traveled from North Carolina, Florida and Connecticut. They’ve come to overcome intimacy issues or body shame, to process trauma, to learn how to better orgasm or otherwise improve their sex lives. Some are therapists themselves looking to expand their knowledge of “sexological bodywork,” a form of body-based sex therapy that Madsen practices. Others simply want to be in community with like-minded women who are also exploring their sexual selves.
The two-night retreat, which costs $550 to $2,000 depending on accommodations on the sprawling multi-villa property, includes mindfulness exercises, journaling, expert-led seminars, group discussions and meals by a private chef. It also features a preview of a “bodywork session” that one might experience at Back to the Body’s longer, weeklong retreat: a live “pleasure demonstration” at the event’s, um, climax — but more on that later.
Madsen guides participants in a “Lotus Lift Meditation,” meant to help them clarify their intentions for their lives.
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
An unlikely high desert sex educator, Madsen, “60-something,” is a brash, outspoken New York transplant who oscillates between frank asides (“I like to say ‘f—’ — get used to it”) and welling up with tears (“I’m sorry, I’m just getting emotional, this is important stuff”) as she proselytizes about the power of erotic energy. She believes that “when a woman reclaims her arousal, she reclaims her aliveness.” Put another way: Pleasure isn’t just a component of your life — it’s a tool for transformation.
“I’ve seen women changing, improving their lives,” Madsen says of past participants, her voice cracking with emotion. “They start taking control of their finances, they start to care about how they’re spending their time.”
Sitting on the porch of the “big house,” a midcentury modern ranch home where the retreat meals are served, attendee Mandy Manuel, 39, a sex therapist from Connecticut, says that she found love — for herself and with a partner — after attending several Back to the Body retreats.
Back to the Body’s midcentury modern ranch home.
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
“I’ve been in a large body my whole life. And the world will tell you ‘you’re not good enough, you’re not pretty enough, you’re not deserving of sex and romance,’” she says. “I totally bought into that story. And I wanted to challenge that. So I came and it was life-changing. Just recognizing ‘Oh, wow, I can receive.’”
Manuel eventually started dating online and met her current partner a year and a half ago (and is now facilitating a Back to the Body retreat in 2026). “My standard for dating shot way up. Previously it was: ‘I’m just going to accept whoever wants me’ and now it’s ‘who do I want?’”
Sexual wellness is a long-established sector of the medical establishment that, today, encompasses everything from contraception and safe sex practices to organic lube, tantric breathwork, couples counseling and the latest Magic Wand Rechargeable vibrator. It adds up to big business: the global sexual wellness market is projected to reach $48.2 billion by 2030, according to Global Industry Analysts Inc.
A participant in the “art of adoration” exercise.
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
Somatic (or body-based) sex therapy, a subset of sexual wellness, is also not new in the medical field. Individuals struggling with sexual issues have for decades turned to sexual surrogates, or trained professionals who specialize in “experiential learning” and who work in tandem with a client’s sex therapist when talk therapy isn’t enough.
Whereas sexual surrogacy is interactive, mimicking partnership, sexological bodywork employs “one-way touch.” In Back to the Body’s private, one-on-one bodywork sessions that means certified sexological bodyworkers, trained in Madsen’s approach, are always clothed and focus attention on the consenting client without reciprocity. A session may involve breathwork, intimacy coaching, sensual touch, sound and movement, including dance. It’s a “body first” approach to healing, in which physical sensations inform thoughts, as opposed to talk therapy.
But hands-on sex education is controversial.
“I don’t endorse it with my clients,” says UCLA emeritus professor Dr. Gail E. Wyatt, a licensed clinical psychologist and board-certified sex therapist, “because I don’t trust [that] the individuals who are assigned [to touch clients] have the boundaries to see this as a professional act and not as an opportunity. Vulnerable individuals may end up in a situation where they’re being taken advantage of.”
Madsen acknowledges that sexological bodywork is edgy but stands by the modality.
“We cannot heal, expand or awaken our sexuality through words alone,” she says. “We must touch the body to hear it speak — and that terrifies people.”
The retreat includes journaling exercises as well as mindfullness activities and group discussions.
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
Sexological bodyworkers are not doctors and there’s no national certification for the profession. Practitioners do, however, adhere to a code of ethics upheld by the Los Angeles-based Assn. of Certified Sexological Bodyworkers. While sexological bodywork falls into a legal gray area, the state of California first recognized it as a profession involving sex education in 2003 when it approved training at San Francisco’s the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (the school closed in 2018 and no additional state-approved schools have emerged). Nonetheless, somatic sex education appears to be growing: two Back to the Body practitioners offer sexual wellness retreats through their own companies: Court Vox leads one for queer men through his the BodyVox and Cosmo Meens leads one for straight men through his Himeros Project.
“There’s a great need for education about sensuality and the body that we don’t get in school or at home, typically speaking,” says Regena Thomashauer, author of “Pussy: A Reclamation,” which explains that we live in a culture that teaches women to turn off their power.
To be clear, Madsen stresses, arousal is not just about orgasming, or even physical pleasure, but about agency. Erotic energy — desire — is a powerful, “life-changing tool” every woman has access to, she says — it connects you to your passion and creativity, to your intuition and voice.
“When women are in touch with their arousal, they start being able to see themselves, they start being able to express themselves, Madsen says. “They find their voice, they’re able to speak their desires.”
Addressing the group in the living room, Madesn elaborates on the empowering, if political, nature of Back to the Body’s work.
Madsen believes that “when a woman reclaims her arousal, she reclaims her aliveness.”
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
“Women have only had the right to vote for just over 100 years,” she says. “You [often] couldn’t have a checking account or credit card until 1974 without a man. Why is this work important? Because we’ve been taught not to trust ourselves, not to trust our bodies. That we are vehicles for birth, that we are vehicles for sex, vehicles for entertainment, vehicles for service — we are not sovereign. What does this work do? It creates sovereign women.”
What’s more, Madsen says, it takes time for women to reach a state of arousal — and many women experience premature penetration during sex.
She breaks into song: “I want a man with a slow hand …” she croons, belting out the Pointer Sisters’ early ‘80s pop hit. Laughter erupts around the room.
A private chef, pictured in the background, prepares farm-to-table meals for participants.
In the book, Madsen documents her search for “sexual, personal and spiritual wholeness.” As part of that journey, she became certified as a sexological bodyworker in 2007 through the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality. She founded Back to the Body in 2011, adding her own spin on sexological bodywork. While most practitioners offered one-off sessions, she says, she launched multi-day immersive retreats, stressing the importance of being “away from the noise of the world.”
Back to the Body had no physical home initially and held retreats virtually or around the U.S. and internationally.
Several Back to the Body participants have gifted the retreat with artworks, now scattered around the property.
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
“But then we found this place,” Madsen says while touring the Joshua Tree property, onto which she moved in July 2024. She strides across the land, more of a swagger, wearing a white flowy dress, white cowboy hat and cowboy boots, her long black hair cascading down her back and her curvaceous bosom occasionally spilling out of her dress.
“This is the house that women built,” she says, sweeping one hand across the horizon and tucking a runaway boob back into her dress with her other. “I couldn’t have afforded this place without help — investments and donations — from participants. This work changed their lives, and they wanted to give back.”
Previous attendees also gifted artworks or ephemera now scattered around the property: large crystals around the pool or a granite statue, outside the main house, of a woman bracing against the wind.
Late in the afternoon, the women settle into the community room for a 45-minute demonstration of what a bodywork session might look like. Madsen, dressed in aqua lingerie, is the client in this scenario; practitioner Cosmo Meens, a buff and barefoot 45-year-old with thigh tattoos and a salt-and-pepper beard, is her certified sexological bodyworker. There is sexy music; there is playful slow dancing; there is laughter. “Louder!” Madsen says of the music, laying down on what looks like a massage table. There is also a shelf of accouterments nearby — coconut oil, a vibrator, a feather — to stimulate pleasure or bring her to orgasm.
The women sit in a circle around the demonstration table, rapt.
Afterward, Madsen sits up, hair mussed and cheeks flushed. There’s a short question-and-answer session. Then Madsen hard-sells the weeklong retreat, which runs from $8,000 to $18,000, depending on programming, accommodations and location (some retreats are international). There are just 30 spots left for 2026, she tells the crowd; and for those who register today, there’s a $1,000 discount.
15 of the 20 women sign up.
Participants during the “Lotus Lift Meditation.”
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
To some, the marketing pitch might have a transactional feel: Is this cutting-edge somatic sex education or the commodification of the orgasm, of pleasure?
“It’s inaccessible,” says Betsy Crane, a retired professor of human sexuality at Widener University, who sees value in the retreat’s work but balks at the pricetag. “I understand why they have to charge as much as they do — it’s staff intensive, they include food, nice venues — but it’s not affordable for most women, that’s the inequality of the world that we live in. If it were more accepted, it could become less expensive because it could be available locally.”
Madsen says the price is in line with today’s economy.
“Travel is expensive, experiences are expensive,” she says. “What I know is: that I’m not getting wealthy, that it’s hard to keep the ship running. That women get done in a week here what costs them 15 years in talk therapy.”
The end goal? Madsen hopes her retreat will change the world “one vulva at a time.”
Sitting on the porch, Deb Morris, 63, a retired business owner who lives outside of Denver, says she’s been on more than a dozen Back to the Body retreats over the past decade. (Do the math.) But the investment of time and money has been “life changing.”
Attendees enjoy downtime between retreat activities.
(Joyce Lee / For The Times)
“How I show up at 63 is so much more vibrant and committed to life,” she says. “I stay in, sexually — my beingness, how I dress, staying healthy in the gym, having a more vibrant friend group. All of those things definitely have been affected by doing this work from my mid-50s to my mid-60s.”
She looks out at the view, a vast desert landscape. Then adds: “I feel alive.”
