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Instant Family (2018)


Instant Family (2018)



7/10



Starring
Mark Wahlberg
Rose Byrne


Direced by Sean Anders


Instant Family promises to be a cool movie, with enough heartwarming drama to keep you entertained—and maybe even make you cry.
The movie delivers on those promises, and I enjoyed practically every moment of it. It’s a feel-good film about how adopting a child (or children) can turn into a nightmare. But this nightmare isn’t just played for laughs—it’s a raw, emotional journey. The couple who take on the role of parents regret their decision at first and try everything to change things. Soon, they start arguing with each other, and before long, they’re making things worse when they’re trying to make them better. But in the end, it all works out.

The plot follows Pete and Ellie Wagner, a married couple who are happy together without kids. They haven’t decided whether they want children yet, but they’ve agreed to think about it much later in life.
Their family teases them about it, and they can handle it—until Ellie goes online and reads about adoption. She gets hooked on the heartwarming stories and pictures, and she and Pete attend an adoption seminar. There, they’re won over by a touching story from a family who adopted a daughter.

They decide to go for it—and they go big, adopting three siblings. It turns into hell for them. They have to learn how to care for children who’ve been raised in unconventional ways. One of the kids is a teenager who just wants to be left alone. She’s been the one taking care of her younger brother and sister since their mom is a drug addict and hasn’t been any help.


The Wagners learn, in the most heart-wrenching way, how hard it is to raise a family—and how difficult it is for kids in the foster care system to adjust to new homes.

Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne play Pete and Ellie Wagner, the parents who thought adoption would be easy. Their story is the heart of the movie, and their acting is out of this world. With a plot that could easily fall flat with subpar performances, this movie is perfectly cast from top to bottom.

For me, Sean Anders—the director, producer, and co-writer of the movie—has done something I appreciate as much as his 2013 film We’re the Millers.
Here, he takes the plot away from the conventional, overly positive portrayal of adoption (like in Despicable Me) and delivers a dose of reality.
The movies he made between We’re the Millers and this one—like Horrible Bosses 2 and Dumb and Dumber To—weren’t great. Even the Daddy’s Home series didn’t do much for me after We’re the Millers. But Instant Family is much better, and I tip my hat to him for it.

This is a good movie to watch anytime. You’re guaranteed to feel good afterward.

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