Instant Family (2018)

Directed by Sean Anders 

Written by Sean Anders and John Morris 

Starring Mark Wahlberg. Rose Byrne, Isabela Moner and Octavia Spencer 

This movie has a very heartwarming story that is honestly pretty original. You see so many comedies about parents who are struggling to raise a kid or multiple kids. They're "in over their heads," the kids are terror raisers, but in the end they become this big happy family with no issues. While this movie may follow a similar path to the cliched 'raising kids comedy', it has much more of an original story.

Pete (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Ellie (Rose Byrne) are seeking something to fill a void in their marriage. They visit a foster care center, and begin to take the steps to fostering a child and maybe eventually even adopting one. The couple finds themselves at an adoption fair where they have a chance to meet prospective children to enter their lives. The two notice a group of teenagers and are hesitant at first about taking in such an older child, until they meet Lizzie (Isabela Moner). They express interest of adopting Lizzie, a 15 year old girl who's mother is currently in prison after setting their house on fire with her lit crack pipe. There's one catch, Lizzie comes with two much younger siblings; Juan and Lita. Pete and Ellie decide to take on the challenge of being foster parents to all three children, and prove to themselves and everyone else that they can do it.

The movie is refreshingly honest about the hard truth about children in the foster care system. Children in the system may have been abused or struggling to cope with losing a parent or having a parent incarcerated. The movie does make light of these tough situations and brings some appropriate comic relief to them as well.

While the movie has two big stars in the lead roles (Byrne and Wahlberg), the shining performance comes from Isabela Moner. Lizzie has a very volatile personality. She is a teenager going through normal teenager problems plus being in foster care and having an addict mother in prison. Moner develops all these struggles into her character very well. Her character actually has a lot of depth-- while one second she may be slamming her door in Ellie's face the next second she is extremely vulnerable and sobbing. Tig Notaro and Octavia Spencer had a lot of funny moments as the two social workers. There was also one scene in the end with Joan Cusack, who makes any thing she appears in at least remotely better.

7/10