Instant Family: Quite Surprising Indeed

He may not be the greatest actor, but I feel like if I was to step into someone's career in Hollywood at this point, I'd either have to step into The Rock's career or Mark Wahlberg's. Not all of his movies are great, but I have to imagine based on the movies he's currently making, he gets a lot of really fun scripts. He's one of the rare few who isn't pigeonholed into a certain type of movie or a certain type of role. He gets to do the dumb alpha male action movies and he gets to do fun comedies. And he knows how to do both. He's one of the actors going right now who looks like he gets offered a wide array of projects in several genres and gets to do the ones he WANTS to do. He's not afraid of doing the raunchy comedy (Ted), the special effects epic (Transformers), the harrowing drama (Patriot's Day), the action-thriller (Mile 22), or even the family movie with Instant Family. While these movies may not all be winners, Wahlberg is a bankable star doing the films he most wants to do, even if a lot of these films (and his presence in them) elicits a lot of eye-rolls. When I first saw the trailer for Instant Family I thought it was a joke. It looked like a cheesy, paint-by-numbers, cliche-riddled, 90s movie we've seen a dozen times. The "laughs" in the trailer were the most obvious jokes/reactions to hackneyed situations. And Wahlberg trying to play the fish out of water dad made it look even worse. There was no way I was going to see this movie. But, as an avid rottentomatoes guy, that 82% fresh rating kept staring me in the face, daring me to see the movie. Until I caved. And I'm very glad that I did.

No thanks to a terrible trailer, Instant Family is actually a really good movie. It takes the situation of a white, childless couple adopting rowdy children of color and all the crazy antics of their lives - and actually turns it into something fresh, funny, and endearing. Wahlberg and Rose Byrne play Pete and Ellie, a couple who have focused most of their marriage on their house-flipping business. But when they decide they want a family, Ellie looks into adoption. They take the 8-week foster parent courses, meet a bunch of different children, until they decide on 15-year-old Lizzie, who comes with two smaller siblings, Juan and Lita. At first everything is going great. They're polite kids who just need a little love and guidance. But once the "honeymoon" phase wears off, shit hits the fan. Lizzie, who harbors an equal amount of love and resentment for her incarcerated druggie mother starts acting out because love and true human interaction triggers her. Juan is scared of everything and Lita is in the third year of her terrible twos, having never known what a mother is. We get to see the strife of this odd family that all comes from genuine organic places. Everyone involved is thrust into unfamiliar territory and there is no real correct way to handle it. But it's such a charming movie that you find yourself rooting for every individual character.

What looks like another white-savior movie actually turns out to say something different. Director Sean Anders even brings this idea into the focal point of the movie. Lizzie rebels against Pete and Ellie because she knows what it's like to be abandoned... especially by white people who think they're doing their moral duty of saving a bunch of minority children and when they get tired of them, they'll ditch them as well. Anders even throws in a couple of Blind Side references for good measure. But the truth of the matter is, sometimes people need people who are different than them. When Pete brings up that he doesn't want to be that white savior with these kids... the case worker relays that there are far more kids in the system than there are people willing to adopt them. It doesn't matter what they look like as long as they'll love these children and provide for them as if they were their own. It was a surprising move that wound up being highly effective. And while it's often played for laughs, there are some seriously REAL moments in the movie where Pete and Ellie, in the height of their frustration, plan ways they can "return" the children and make up a story to their families so they don't look like they gave up. These plans are never discussed with a heightened degree of seriousness, but these feel like real conversations I'm sure real adoptive parents have had at the beginning of their journeys.

While I do blame the trailer for making the movie look like something it isn't, I am glad that it didn't spoil any of the funniest and most heart-warming moments of the film. I felt like I was watching a movie I didn't know anything about and nearly everything I got to see was brand new. There are a lot of very humorous moments that have very touching after-effects. Sean Anders based this movie off his own real life experiences with adopting his children and there really is a personal touch to this movie that isn't seen in a lot of his previous work. And because it is such a personal story, the characters are a lot richer and more authentic. Wahlberg and Byrne have a great chemistry and the child actors portraying their kids are all wonderful as well. Byrne especially stands out in the film because while she's held her own in comedies like Bridesmaids and Neighbors, I never remember just how funny she actually is. Several times she had my sides splitting. Put away everything you think you're going to expect with this movie because I assure you it will exceed expectations.

The only issue I have with the movie is that it does tie up almost too nicely at the end with a couple of moments being a little too "out-there" in terms of realism, but in favor of a crowd-pleasing ending. It wasn't enough, however, to ruin what was certainly a very unexpectedly great experience I had watching the rest. It's been out for a few weeks now, but in this coming weekend of no new releases and with a LOT of good movies to choose from, Instant Family should definitely be near the top of your list.

B+