Hikari’s beautifully moving and affably humorous story of human connection, “Rental Family,” 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 Japan, 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 bumble 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 stumbled into.

In the screenplay by Hikari and Stephen Blahut, Philip finds himself working for Tada (Takehiro Hira), who runs a company called Rental Family, where he and his staff are hired by clients 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 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, and so he throws himself into the gig.

The Rental Family service is about maintaining the 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.

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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), his client, soon realize that it’s much more complicated for Mia than just pretending to be a nuclear family for a school interview.

While playing daddy, Philip also juggles a role as a journalist profiling an aging, iconic screen actor, Kikuo Hasegawa (Akira Emoto), from whom he learns surprising lessons about life, memory and legacy. He finds himself deeply connecting with his clients, young and old, and learning from both of them, while becoming tangled in their lives.

Empathy pours off Fraser in waves, which is what made his Oscar-winning performance in “The Whale” actually work. Hikari channels that quality to good use in “Rental Family,” but never oversteps. The film is sweet and affecting, but 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 peccadillos and mistakes, though we never question his motivations because of the inherent goodness that radiates off Fraser.

Hikari’s beautiful, naturalistic style also perfectly suits this story. A native of Osaka, the Tokyo that she showcases is one of quotidian everyday life, not the exotic, futuristic, neon city that an outsider might show us. Her Tokyo 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, a little assistance to get the things that 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 stumbles and 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 in relationship to other people. 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, and he is the emotional anchor of this wonderfully life-affirming and quietly resonant film about the importance of being together that announces Hikari as a major talent to watch.

‘Rental Family’

3.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, some strong language, and suggestive material)

Running time: 1:43

How to watch: In theaters Nov. 21

CHICAGO — The Gophers will play without two important defensive players against Northwestern at Wrigley Field on Saturday.

Linebacker Devon Williams and cornerback John Nestor are out, according to the U’s unavailability report shared two hours before the 11 a.m. kickoff.

Williams has been a consistent presence in the middle of Minnesota’s defense with a team-leading 73 total tackles, 7 1/2 tackles for lost yards and 2 1/2 sacks in all 10 games this season.

Matt Kingsbury is a likely candidate to start next to LB Maverick Baranowski against the Wildcats. Mason Carrier and Jeff Roberson might also see added playing time.

Nestor, who has missed the Nebraska win earlier this season, had a team-high three interceptions, 38 total tackles and four TFLs in nine games.

Corners Za’Quan Bryan, Jai’Onte’ McMillian and Mike Gerald are expected to receive bigger workloads with Nestor sidelined.

The Gophers also list four other players as out: Garrison Monroe, Simon Seidl, Evan Redding and Quintin Redding.

Receiver Kenric Lanier is not mentioned in the unavailable list, setting up his return Saturday. He missed the last two games.

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Pioneer Press staffers who cover the Vikings take a stab at predicting Sunday’s outcome against the Packers in Green Bay:

Dane Mizutani

Packers 24, Vikings 13: It’s going to be pretty hard to pick the Vikings to win any game until J.J. McCarthy shows massive improvement. He’s been the worst quarterback in the NFL by virtually every meaningful metric. It’s hard to argue with facts.

Jace Frederick

Packers 20, Vikings 14: The Vikings offense struggled at home against a horrible defense last week, so playing against Micah Parsons and Co. at Lambeau doesn’t figure to go well.

John Shipley

Packers 31, Vikings 18: We’ll see what the Vikings are made of emotionally on Sunday. Did the Bears loss break their spirit, or do they have some fight left? This has the makings of an ambush.

Charley Walters

Packers 27, Vikings 17: Look for Packers’ QB Jordan Love to wear out Vikings’ cornerbacks.

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A memory from Nov. 18, 2017, popped up in my Facebook feed the other day.

We were ice fishing on a small lake atop 6 inches of solid ice so smooth it looked like glass.

Not this year. We’ve still got a ways to go before there’s enough ice to convince me to venture out.

Time was, Thanksgiving weekend was kind of the benchmark for venturing out on early ice. I can remember a handful of successful Thanksgiving weekend outings on small lakes in Itasca County of northern Minnesota, but that’s a few years ago now.

A few, as in nearly three decades.

Smaller, shallower lakes are definitely icing over, and YouTubers in some areas already are weighing in with “crazy” and “insane” early ice fishing action in the annual race to be first. As Matt Henson of WDAY-TV reported on Nov. 19, authorities in Lakes Country rescued two teenage boys on Tuesday, Nov. 18, after they broke through thin ice on Straight Lake in Osage, Minn.

This is a tough time of year for those of us who fish. Here in the Northland, we’re in that nasty “tween time,” when most anglers have put away their boats because it’s too cold to sit in a boat – “ice in the eyelets cold,” we used to call it – but it’s not cold enough to make good, solid ice.

And with highs in the upper 30s and even 40s – and lows barely below freezing in the forecast as I write this – safe ice by Thanksgiving is going to be a stretch just about everywhere in this part of the world.

Best-case scenario, early December is probably the more likely option – and that’s provided we get an extended cold snap with temperatures in the single digits or even below zero. On the bodies of water I fish, mid-December, or even closer to Christmas, is the most likely scenario for getting out on early ice.

As the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources clearly states on its website, “there really is no sure answer” when it comes to judging when ice is safe.

“You can’t judge the strength of ice just by its appearance, age, thickness, temperature or whether or not the ice is covered with snow,” the DNR says. “Strength is based on all these factors – plus the depth of water under the ice, size of the water body, water chemistry and currents, the distribution of the load on the ice and local climatic conditions.”

The Minnesota DNR’s ice safety recommendations. (Courtesy of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources)

With that as a backdrop, the DNR and numerous other agencies offer these safety guidelines for clear ice:

Under 4 inches – Stay off.
4 inches – Foot travel only.
5 to 7 inches – Snowmobile or small ATV.
7 to 8 inches – Side-by-side ATV.
9 to 10 inches – Small car or SUV.
11 to 12 inches – Medium SUV or small truck.
13 inches – Medium truck.
16 to 17 inches – Heavy-duty truck.
20+ inches – Heavy-duty truck with wheelhouse.

And if it’s white, cloudy ice, double the thickness guidelines, the DNR says.

I obviously wasn’t following those clear ice guidelines in November 2000, when I got talked into joining a couple of ice fishing pros onto a small lake somewhere between East Grand Forks and Bemidji. These guys have plenty of “cred,” and we wore life jackets, carried ice picks, and used a spud bar to check the ice thickness as we inched our way out to a spot about 100 yards offshore.

Everywhere we walked that sunny November afternoon, the ice thickness was in the “stay off” category. Here’s how I described the experience in the Sunday, Nov. 26, 2000, edition of the Grand Forks Herald:

“I don’t know the physics behind the phenomenon, but early ice makes one of the creepiest sounds known to human ears when it encounters weight. Every jab with the ice chisel sends a ‘ping-like’ sound rocketing from the point of impact and across the frozen horizon. Certain body parts pucker at the sound.”

For this exercise in bravery – foolishness might be the better word – we were rewarded with a few small perch in about four hours of fishing. Two of us crept our way back to shore before dark, while one of the diehards, who stayed past sunset, landed a 13½-inch crappie.

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As creepy as that long-ago encounter was, I felt relatively safe – relatively being the key word here – because I was on the ice with people I trusted, knew what they were doing and carried safety gear.

I ended the story like this:

“If you don’t have that luxury, I’d suggest you wait a little bit longer. There’ll be plenty of time to fish through holes in the ice.”

Then as now, those are words to live by.