Would you hire a person to pretend to be your…?

One of the adages most of us grew up with (perhaps negatively) is the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. The societal pressure to use our money to buy things and experiences so that we fit in with our neighbours (who do the same thing). I think it sits in an uneasy relationship with the religious concept about coveting.

As is invariably the case, real life is more nuanced than a list of dos and don’ts. There is a degree of merit to be found in improving our lives and communities (if that is what it is); on the other hand it can be rather vapid consumerism that is nothing more than tokenism, ‘society’ is surely what we choose to make it and conformity is the method of control and regulation.

The film Rental Family considers a more extreme aspect of Japanese family life and the expectations placed upon people to save face. This is on many levels a wonderful thing but of course has its evident flaws – an inability to accept the reality of difference.

It is very debatable if Japan is actually extreme at all in this regard, perhaps they are merely more honest about the problem than we may pretend. The recent rise in far right rhetoric is quite evidently appealing to those who like conformity, uniformity and control with little regard for the reality of difference or a hatred of it.

Rental Family is essentially a story about the need for support and understanding of difference and an acceptance of it. In a crowded world where isolation is rife, despite the illusion of increased interconnection, we can see that many people struggle with their sense of aloneness, sadly an increasing number (over 6,000 a year) take their own lives.

Platitudes don’t really help, practical support and attention may, the effort is certainly worthwhile. The idea that in our ‘service economy’ we could now sell the service to act as a family member and actually make life better, which of course isn’t always true of actual family members. One might also consider that transactional relationships are nothing new – most of our monarchs have been based on transactions, not love.

Set in Japan, we witness where this service might be deployed – in an apology, a wedding, any social event, the selection process for a child applying for a school, someone to show interest in the end of a career (or life) or even a mourner – something that is actually a very ancient ‘paid for service’.

Who better than an actor to pretend? Someone who is skilled in character and responding to context.

As a financial planner, I hope that it is evident that we offer rather more than simply arranging money stuff. To be blunt, the part of my work that I enjoy the most is getting to know you, your values, personality, friends and family. It’s your story and is what interests me.

Our role is to help you make your story more obvious, more aligned to your stated values and to help remind you that it (life) is mercilessly brief. Our world has an unlimited number of distractions from the moment we wake until our head returns to the pillow (and that’s for those of us who have an ability to switch off at that point).

Money is not the goal, it is the lubricant to your life, its feature is to function, not to count.

As for the film, I utterly loved it, it’s beautiful, and it reminded me that I would like to visit Japan, a world that seems so familiar yet different, that is perhaps its beauty to me.

References:

• ONS data on UK  (England and Wales) suicide rates