Instant Family

Released 14th February 2019, Instant Family follows a couple who decide they want to adopt a child… and end up adopting three. While the pacing feels rather rushed at the beginning of the film, its narrative makes a recurring effort to display the process for adopting parents through the process of fostering and subsequently adopting. Instant Family also makes an effort to confront social stigmas against children in the system through different ‘supporting’ characters and their interactions with Pete and Ellie, the parents. Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne both imbue a fun yet grounded charisma to Pete and Ellie; they actively make jokes yet manage to convey raw emotions through their natural performances and strong chemistry.

Julianna Gamiz and Gustavo Escobar act as the younger children Pete and Ellie adopt, Lita and Juan. They both deliver their lines well enough and are comical in their physicalisation but are considerably weak in having emotional nuances or giving strong facial performances. Similarly, most of Ellie’s relatives are significantly weak in their performances and opt to give the ‘ha ha – your pain gives us joy’ archetypes of comedies which is particularly successful at sucking any real tension or energy out of the scenes they are in (looking at you Tom Segura). That said, one of the best characters is easily Margo Martindale’s Sandy. As Pete’s mother, Sandy is the grandmother to the children and Martindale’s high energy, warm voice and overall grandma-isms make her hysterical yet believable in every scene. As for the third ‘child’, Isabella Merced gives another standout performance as the teenager Lizzy.

Unlike the other two, Lizzy is written as a more independent individual and Merced manifests this in her jaded performance and she provides a far more emotionally driven performance than the rest of the cast. As far as visual storytelling goes, the film utilises quick-cut edits to cut to short gags which enhances their comedic value. While Michael Andrews gives an original soundtrack, it is completely unmemorable; the only music I can remember is the use of licensed music with some of the pieces (such as Paul and Linda McCartney’s Let ‘Em In) being applicable and well implemented. Overall, Instant Family is better than the average modern comedy but is still held back by some of the genre’s tropes and pitfalls.