INSTANT FAMILY (12A)
SWEET and touching comedy drama about foster parenting, which delivers its core messages of patience and self-sacrifice with sincerity and tear-filled eyes.
Pete Wagner (Mark Wahlberg) and wife Ellie (Rose Byrne) renovate tired properties. The couple have never seriously discussed raising children until an argument between Ellie and her sister Kim (Allyn Rachel) prompts a serious debate about foster parenting.
Pete and Ellie naively undergo a training course run by sassy social workers Sharon (Tig Notaro) and Karen (Octavia Spencer), who repeatedly hammer home the physical and emotional toll that lies ahead.
“These kids will push buttons you never knew you had,” they warn.
Once Pete and Ellie have qualified, they offer a home to troubled 15-year-old Lizzy (Isabela Moner) and her siblings: 10-year-old Juan (Gustavo Quiroz) and sixyear-old Lita (Julianna Gamiz).
After a blissful honeymoon period, the Wagners clash with Lizzy, who is convinced that her drug addict mother will clean up her act and reassert her custody rights.
“We’ve just got to accept that we made a terrible mistake and our lives are gonna suck now,” observes Pete with a rueful smile.
Relatives rally around the exhausted couple, including Pete’s mother (Margo Martindale), who makes child-rearing seem effortless.