Taglines: Just add chaos laughter awkwardness mistakes love.
Married couple Pete and Ellie Wagner, feeling a void in the marriage, visit a foster care center. Two social workers, Karen and Sharon, guide the hopeful parents on the steps to getting into becoming adoptive parents. The couples are brought to a fair where they have the chance to go up to kids that they are interested in adopting. Pete and Ellie walk by the teenagers, although Ellie shows hesitance over raising a teen, but one of the teens, Lizzie, informs Ellie that they all know no one wants to adopt the teens. Pete and Ellie talk to Karen and Sharon over potentially taking in Lizzie.
The social workers inform the couple that Lizzie’s mother is a drug addict who is currently in jail, and she set their home on fire because she left the crack pipe lit. It also turns out that Lizzie has two younger siblings, Juan and Lita. Although this seems like more of a challenge for Pete and Ellie, they agree to meet the siblings. Pete and Ellie have Thanksgiving dinner with Ellie’s family, where they all make comments about never having confidence in the Wagners adopting kids. Ellie has enough and decides that they will go through with the foster care to prove that they can be good parents.
Instant Family is a 2018 American comedy-drama film starring Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne as two parents who adopt three young children; Isabela Moner, Gustavo Quiroz, Julianna Gamiz, Margo Martindale, Julie Hagerty, Tig Notaro, and Octavia Spencer also star. It is directed by Sean Anders, who wrote the screenplay with John Morris, based in-part on Anders’s own experiences. Instant Family was released in the United States on November 16, 2018. It has grossed $81 million, and was called an “earnest, heartwarming comedy” by critics, who also praised the performances.
As of January 17, 2019, Instant Family has grossed $66.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $14.3 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $81 million, against a production budget of $48 million.
In the United States and Canada, Instant Family was released alongside Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald and Widows, and was projected to gross $15–20 million from 3,258 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $4.8 million on its first day, including $550,000 from Thursday night previews.
It went on to debut to $14.7 million, finishing fourth at the box office. Deadline Hollywood said the opening compared to the $48 million budget “isn’t spectacular, but there’s hope that [the] film could leg out…over Thanksgiving.” In its second weekend the film dropped just 14% to $12.5 million (including $17.4 million over the five-day Thanksgiving frame), finishing sixth.
Film Review for Instant Family
Before my screening of “Instant Family” this week, the film’s director, Sean Anders, showed up on the big screen with a prerecorded statement. He explained to the audience that the movie they were about to watch was based on a true story—his true story. Anders and his wife adopted three children out of the foster care system and were met with untold challenges in the process, inspiring him to adapt their experiences for a big-budget studio comedy starring Mark Wahlberg.
Like the director’s statement, “Instant Family” is a movie with good intentions but is uneven in tone, leaving me with mixed feelings. It felt like the speech was preempting any criticism with sentimentality. The uneasiness continued in the film’s wild swings between tragedy and goofy comedy.
Pete (Wahlberg) and Ellie (Rose Byrne) are a relatively nondescript couple who flip homes and live fairly tame, childless middle-class lives. After an argument with Ellie’s sister, the pair begins thinking about having children. Worried about their age, they decide to foster in the hopes of adopting an older child. By chance, they end up interested in the case of Lizzy (Isabela Moner), a sharp-but-troubled teenager.
The couple learns that Lizzy comes with two younger siblings, a sensitive boy named Juan (Gustavo Quiroz) and the tantrum-prone Lita (Julianna Gamiz), and decides to take all three home. After an all-too-brief honeymoon period, chaos starts to break out as first-time parents stumble through caring for a traumatized teenager and two scared children.
The premise of “Instant Family” is not an easy one to make light of, especially since Anders, who also co-wrote the movie, includes some serious doses of reality in the mix. The children in the foster care system may have been abused or struggling to cope with losing their parents, and the movie is refreshingly honest about those issues.
However, sometimes that sincerity feels undermined in scenes like the support group sessions. There’s a moment when Pete and Ellie share how great their new foster kids are and the group laughs because the new family is in their honeymoon period, but it’s a stilted kind of laugh and feels more awkward and somewhat mean. That reaction feels staged in comparison to the relaxed bon mots thrown by Tig Notaro and Octavia Spencer, both of whom single-handedly save those scenes with their timing and delivery.
While Wahlberg and Byrne’s characters feel somewhat underwritten, Moner’s divisive character becomes the true leader of “Instant Family.” Moner’s performance is surprisingly uncanny, bringing to life a volatile personality without overacting. She could smile while delivering a ruthless insult, hurt Ellie with the smallest of gestures or fix her eyes coldly on any authority figure daring to parent her. Moner relates those defensive actions to Lizzy’s vulnerability, and she’s equally capable of crumpling into a sobbing mess or laughing with her siblings.
Anders, whose previous credits include “Daddy’s Home” and “That’s My Boy,” has tried to explore the funny side of fatherhood before. While the sincerity in “Instant Family” may not always work well with the film’s demand for punchlines, it gives a young actress like Moner a chance to show some range. Plus, with a supporting cast that includes Notaro, Spencer, Margo Martindale and Joan Cusack, there are just enough oddly sweet performances to get a good laugh. “Instant Family” isn’t too schmalzy as a feel-good family movie, and it has a certain charm in its earnest appeal to tell a different story.
Instant Family (2018)
Directed by: Sean Anders
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne, Isabela Moner, Gustavo Quiroz, Julianna Gamiz, Octavia Spencer, Tig Notaro, Britt Rentschler, Allyn Rachel, Margo Martindale, Julie Hagerty
Screenplay by: Sean Anders, John Morris
Production Design by: Clayton Hartley
Cinematography by: Brett Pawlak
Film Editing by: Brad Wilhite
Costume Design by: Lisa Lovaas
Set Decoration by: Beauchamp Fontaine
Art Direction by: Elliott Glick, Alex McCarroll
Music by: Michael Andrews
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic elements, sexual material, language and some drug references.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: November 16, 2018
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