Rentaneko (2012)

Sayoko, a woman in her thirties who had lived alone with her grandmother for many years, has spent the two years since her grandmother’s death living with lots of cats in an old, single-story Japanese house. She inherited from her grandmother the knack for winning cats’ affection, but she wants people to like her too. Writing “This is the year I get married” on a goal sheet, she puts it up on display. But the only person she regularly talks to is the housewife next door, who makes snide remarks to her over the garden wall. Sayoko loads her cats onto a handcart and walks around calling through a megaphone, “Rent-a-ca-aaat!” Her business is a cat-rental service, lending cats to fill the holes in lonely people’s hearts. One customer, an elderly woman named Hisako, has lost her beloved cat and asks to rent one that looks very much like it. Sayoko visits customers’ homes to check whether they can properly care for a cat. Hisako passes, and rents a cat for the rest of her life. Worried about how Sayoko manages to live when she charges only a thousand yen, Hisako expresses concern. In fact, however, Sayoko makes money from her talent for investing in stocks. When Hisako dies, Sayoko goes to collect the cat. Hisako’s son is a cold, unfeeling businessman. But Hisako’s refrigerator is packed with homemade desserts that had been her son’s favorites. Realizing that, knowing her time was near, Hisako had happily prepared her son’s favorite treats with the cat by her side, Sayoko smiles. After Sayoko has left, Hisako’s son eats the desserts and sinks into memories of his mother. Yoshida, a company employee, rents a female kitten. After six years away on a solo posting, he is due to return to the home where his wife and child are waiting, but his adolescent daughter dislikes him. Hurt and lonely, he feels he needs a cat. Worried about how Sayoko manages to live when she charges only a thousand yen, Yoshida expresses concern. In fact, Sayoko has made a success of herself as a fortune-teller. On the day he is finally due to return to his family, Yoshida finds it hard to part with the kitten. He pleads with Sayoko to let him keep her, as if he were taking a bride. Sayoko agrees on the condition that he care for the cat for the rest of her life. Sayoko dreams of visiting a large cat-rental shop. She dislikes the fact that the cats are ranked, with mixed-breed cats assigned the lowest, C rank. When she wakes, she is fed up with the midsummer heat and decides that, if she is going to go somewhere, she might as well go to an even hotter place: Hawaii. She chooses Hawaii as the destination for her future honeymoon. While out doing business for her cat-rental service, Sayoko is drawn into a rental-car branch by an advertisement offering a chance to win a trip to Hawaii. Megumi, who runs the branch by herself, is a woman who ranks people too. But she and Sayoko hit it off, and Megumi confides the lonely truth that she considers herself a C-rank woman. Megumi rents a cat and expresses concern about Sayoko’s livelihood. In fact, Sayoko is a composer who writes music for commercials. Sayoko rents a car hoping to win the Hawaii trip, but draws the consolation prize in the lottery. She loads her cats into the car and enjoys an unplanned drive. While out promoting her cat-rental service, Sayoko runs into Yoshizawa, who went to the same middle school as her. He calls her “Jamiko from the nurse’s office.” Sayoko ignores him, but Yoshizawa insists that he is lonely and ends up coming to her house. Known as “Yoshizawa the liar and bluffer,” he had been isolated since middle school and sometimes escaped to the nurse’s office. To him, Sayoko, who would lie on a bed snoring as if completely at ease, had been an object of envy. Back in middle school, Sayoko could not keep up with her studies and had no friends, so she was always a student sleeping in the nurse’s office. She was already living with her grandmother then, and they were very close. Though Sayoko looks back on those years as a dark time at school, she had a loving home life. But her grandmother is gone now. Yoshizawa says that his occupation is “thief,” then disappears before Sayoko realizes it. That night, a detective visits and shows Sayoko Yoshizawa’s photograph. Yoshizawa really was a burglar. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Sayoko confesses, a hole opened up in her own heart too. Meeting lonely people and helping fill the holes in their hearts, Sayoko goes on renting out cats today as well.