Director's statement:
Rent-A-Dad is a deeply personal film inspired by my own relationship with my father and how strenous it has been since I decided to quit being a full-time doctor to pursue acting. When you make a choice that your parents don’t understand, a strange negative space can grow between you which can feel like the death of that person inside your head even if they are alive. This film is my way of exploring the conversation I may never have in real life, and coming to terms with it.
I want the film to unfold entirely inside a car during a single journey. The moving vehicle is a metaphor for time, distance, and emotional processing. By limiting camera setups and favouring long takes and two-shots, the life of the film rests in the actors' performances. The humour comes from awkwardness, and miscommunication juxtaposed with over-the-top attempts to force conversations. I hope to tell this story in a distinctly British form of dark comedy that allows vulnerability and realism. I’ll be working the veteran actor Kulvinder Ghir in this film. Having done a film with him recently (‘Dinner for Loners’) I know how easy it will be to have chemistry on screen and have a smooth shoot.
I hope to use natural summer light, depicting the English countryside in reflections on the windscreen of the car, balanced with dull grey reflections of the mundane English motorway. I feel as stripped-back, skeleton crew approach would be perfect to allow for an intimate yet cinematic shoot with a modest budget. Sound design and music will play an important role in balancing tone: gentle road-trip scoring that builds toward a joyful pop-and-lock finale, signalling the emotional shift from grief to acceptance.
Ultimately, Rent-A-Dad is about the tough father-son relationship, immigration, and the pressure to live the life others imagine for us. It asks what happens when we stop waiting for approval and instead learn to accept love in imperfect forms. Through humour and tenderness, the film explores how healing can come from unexpected places - even from a terrible actor with a fake moustache.
