Directed by: Sean Anders
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne, Isabela Moner, Margo Martindale, Joan Cusack, Gustavo Quiroz, Jr., Julianna Gamiz, Octavia Spencer, Tig Notaro
Before the end credits began rolling on Instant Family, a website promoting foster parenting was flashed onscreen. If what happens in Instant Family is any indication of what truly happens when becoming a foster parent, then count me out. The biggest of the many issues surrounding Instant Family is that it doesn't know what kind of movie it wants to be. When it wants cheap laughs, Juan (Quiroz) is brought on to have a ball violently hit him in the face or a nail gun drop and impale a nail into his foot. When it wants to be all serious, the oldest foster child Lizzie (Moner) is trotted out to start an argument or behave like a brat. I do not doubt the confusing gamut of emotions a foster child bounced around the system must have, but Lizzie is too much. She isn't confused. She's bi-polar.
Instant Family never masters its tone. It goes from slapstick to sentimentality so quickly in the same scene at times we encounter possible whiplash. We wonder why Pete (Wahlberg) and Ellie (Byrne), who are a nice childless couple, would want to sign themselves up for this. I'm not supposed to feel this way, but their lives were better off without all of the drama these kids bring into their lives. If the movie is to be believed, foster parenting is a prerequisite for sainthood. I have no doubt foster parenting is challenging, but it must be rewarding on some level. Instant Family tries to make the argument that there are rewards, but it never convinces me or itself that there are any.
Pete and Ellie flip houses for a living, and business is good. But because they are childless, they feel empty. They live in a nice house with just each other, and decide to solve their empty nest dilemma by adopting a trio of siblings. Pete and Ellie go through a foster parent training course, and are told of the system's positives and negatives by Octavia Spencer and Tig Notaro, who garner the movie's biggest laughs with their byplay and their expertise. I can't fault the performances in Instant Family, just the fact that they are at the service of a movie which doesn't move the needle emotionally even when it is trying desperately to do so.
Pete and Ellie encounter the most trouble with the rebellious Lizzie, who wants to fill her own emotional void by reconnecting with her ex-con, drug addicted biological mother against the wishes of Pete, Ellie and her younger siblings. Juan's scared, overly deferential behavior is never dealt with. Why is he so frightened? Or accident-prone? The movie doesn't explore that. Instead, it focuses on Lizzie, who is unpredictable, angry, and not just troubled, but Troubled. She doesn't garner much empathy, and that is fatal to the movie. There is a key moment in which Lizzie runs away after hearing some bad news about her mother, and by this point, and I know I'm probably a churl for feeling this way, I was hoping Pete and Ellie would use this as a get out of jail free card. Joan Cusack shows up at a wacky neighbor who seems desperate for any human contact. I enjoy Joan Cusack's work, but why have her show up in only the final ten minutes of the movie? More could've been done with her.
Instant Family wants to spread an honest message and it can't be faulted for trying, but this isn't the stuff of comedy. It should've delved into the issues it raises instead of sidestepping them or glossing over them on the way to a forced happy ending. Maybe director Anders, who based this story on his own real-life experiences, hedged his bets by throwing in slapstick when things got too uncomfortable. It's a pity Instant Family, like Pete and Ellie themselves, just wants to be loved.
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