Instant Family is a 2018 American comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Sean Anders and starring Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne, with a supporting cast including Isabela Moner, Octavia Spencer, Tig Notaro, Margo Martindale, Julie Hagerty and Michael O'Keefe.
Based on a true story, the movie centers around a married couple who adopt three siblings from foster care and try to navigate the unfamiliar waters they have entered.
Pete (Wahlberg) and Ellie (Byrne) Wagner have just entered the complicated, unfamiliar world of adopting from foster care. Their original plan of adopting just one kid triples when they end up with three siblings, Lizzie (Moner), Juan, and Lita. As kids and parents alike get settled into their new routine, new challenges and setbacks come up almost everyday, leaving Pete and Ellie doubtful that they've made the right decision. But as they continue to navigate this brave new world (and their new kids), they gradually come to find out for themselves that the trials and tribulations, as well as the good times, are what really makes them a family.
This movie contains examples of:
- Adoption Conflict: Pete and Ellie decide to adopt three siblings from foster care who grow attached to them (except Lizzie until the end). Their birth mother was deemed unfit to take care of the kids for taking drugs and setting the house on fire by accident, and she goes to jail. She gets out of jail and is ready to take custody of her kids after making some effort... just to go back to drugs again and refuses to take her kids back because she knows she can't be a good parent. Eventually, Pete and Ellie win custody of the kids, much to their delight.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: A familial one when Pete and Ellie console Lizzie after her birth mother has chosen drugs over her and her siblings and they assure her that they love her and her siblings. Even the neighbor next door found this touching.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Pete tries to approach the teenagers at the adoption fair, feeling sympathetic for them, Ellie is against the idea for the following reasons.Ellie: They do drugs, and they masturbate, and they watch people playing video games on YouTube.
- Award-Bait Song: "I'll Stay" by Isabela Merced herself of course.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Lizzie gives Pete and Ellie a really hard time, swearing at them and treating them with disrespect, pushing them away as far as she can. She gets better in the end, though, when realizing they always loved her and just want to take care of her.
- Break the Cutie: Lizzie when she finds out her birth mother has willingly given up regaining custody of her and her siblings and isn't coming back for them.
- But Not Too White: Played for Laughs. When Lizzie accuses Ellie and Pete of trying to play white saviors, Ellie retorts that she's "1/8 Native American, so she's not that white". Lizzie is not impressed.
- Department of Child Disservices: Subverted. Karen and Sharon genuinely care about the children they put in foster care. They lead training for hopeful adoptive parents and host a feelings circle to help them cope and figure out their new parenting routines. They even encourage potential foster parents to consider adopting teens or multiple children at once, which is rare, given that there are many kids in the system who deserve to find a loving home. They also gently break the news to Lizzie about her mother not coming as Carla has started to use drugs again, and offer real sympathy to the heartbroken girl.Karen: [to Lizzie] Honey, when we saw her, it was obvious she's using again. She's not coming, baby.Sharon: Sweetie, we're so sorry.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Charlie gives off this vibe. He's an awkward, redheaded kid whom Lizzie ignores when he tries to talk to her at school. The final scene where he and Lizzie share a smile at the adoption ceremony implies they've become closer.
- Dramatic Irony: Throughout the movie, Lizzie assumes Paul and Ellie wanted to originally foster Juan and Lita (given most foster parents want younger kids than teenagers) and only got her as part of a package deal. What she doesn't know is they actually wanted her first and only learned about her siblings after requesting to take her in.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the struggles and roadblocks they went through, Pete and Ellie are finally able to adopt Lizzie, Juan, and Lita and give them a safe home and a loving family.
- Enfant Terrible: The Christian couple looking to foster get a kindergartener who fights, curses and threatens to kill them.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Ellie's younger sister Kim believes Ellie thinks she's better than her and is determined to outdo her sister in any area, mostly in becoming a mother.
- Happily Adopted: Eventually, Lizzie, Juan, and Lita become adopted by Pete and Ellie.
- Hard Truth Aesop:
- Sometimes biological parents put their kids into someone else's care because they know they don't have what it takes to properly care for them. A heartbroken Lizzy learns this when Sharon and Karen tell her and her siblings that their mom isn't coming and never will due to her own problems.
- Foster parenting is hard and you shouldn't do it if you're in it for the wrong reasons. The movie goes out of its way to show the training and ongoing support foster parents can/do receive, with the point being that foster children are unique children to parent and sometimes in difficult ways, and that you need to drop your expectations at the door and parent the kid you have, not the kid you want.
- I Want Grandkids:
- Pete's mother is ecstatic when he and Ellie bring the kids home due to this feeling and takes the family to Six Flags to celebrate the event.
- Zig-zagged with Ellie's parents. Her family is less than enthusiastic at the idea of her taking in a stranger's child with possible baggage becoming part of their home. However, once the kids get here, the grandparents warm up to them, and so do all the other relatives.
- Interracial Adoption Struggles: Pete and Ellie Wagner adopt three Latino children because the eldest sister impressed them, and they didn't want her younger siblings Lita and Juan to be without her. Ellie is skeptical at first, assuming they wanted to be the good white couple who adopted children of color out of pity. There is a slight language barrier. Although the trio is bilingual, Pete struggles to use Spanish with Lita and Juan, which seems to work better when disciplining them.
- Intimate Hair Brushing: Ellie's first bonding moment with Lizzie comes when Lizzie lets her brush out her tangled hair. Ellie considers it a turning point and gifts Lizzie the brush as a symbol of their new relationship, only to find it in the toilet the next day. Lizzie eventually admits that the intimacy of the moment reminded her of her biological mother, so bonding with Ellie felt like a betrayal to her.
- Jerkass Realization: Lizzie realizes the Wagners really care about her and her siblings and aren't deserving of her scorn when they drop everything to rush Juan to the hospital for a nail in his foot.
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Kim won't shut up about trying to have a baby, and it's implied she's been trying fertility treatments. At first, she's appalled at the idea of adopting from foster care because she wants a biological child. Later, however, she and her husband are inspired by Pete and Ellie's experience with the kids and announce they're adopting from foster care, too. In the end, she and her husband attend the court hearing for Pete and Ellie's official adoption of Lizzie, Juan, and Lita. Along with them is the foster kid they're planning to adopt, and Kim appears to be pregnant as well.
- Love at First Sight: Family version. Pete and Ellie become taken with the Deadpan Snarker Lizzie almost instantly after she calls them out for talking about the teenage foster kids while still in hearing range.
- Mighty Whitey: Discussed In-Universe. Pete is concerned about how it would look for him and Ellie to be "white saviors" taking in Latino kids and mentioning Avatar as an example. Karen, played by Octavia Spencer to boot, is the one to shut this mindset down. She says that, when dealing with people who criticize them for this reason, to simply ask them how many foster kids they've adopted and gotten out of the system. Furthermore, she and Sharon say all that matters is that they love the kids they're taking in and not to focus on color.
- Nervous Wreck: Juan sobs hysterically at the drop of a hat, implied to be from experiencing abuse in past foster homes due to tiny mistakes he would make and be scolded for.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Pete and Ellie track down the real Jacob (a 22-year-old man) after he prompts Lizzie (who's 15) to send a nude photo of herself to him and beat the ever-loving crap out of him.
- Papa Wolf/ Mama Bear: As Jacob above finds out, they may not be the kids biological parents, but they are going to kick the ever loving crap out of him for sending lewd photos to Lizzie.
- Parental Neglect: The kids' biological mother, Carla. A product of foster care herself, she became a drug addict and would disappear for weeks at a time, leaving Lizzie to care for her younger siblings in her stead. One day, she passed out with a lit crack pipe in hand and set the house on fire, which finally cost her custody of Lizzie (who was only 11) along with Juan and Lita. She seems to be getting better towards the end, only to start using drugs again and refusing to take back her kids because she knows she's incapable of being a parent.
- Percussive Therapy: Pete takes Lizzie to one of his construction sites and encourages her to vent by going crazy with a sledgehammer, and they end up bonding.
- Promoted to Parent: Lizzie was force to act as the parent to Juan and Lita because of their mom's neglect. This gets deconstructed with her having trouble letting go of this role and having Pete and Ellie be the parent, and also being a poor parental figure...because she's a child. This is addressed by Sharon and Karen while discussing the children with Pete and Ellie, who are initially confused as to what their role would be in that dynamic. Sharon and Karen stress that Lizzie sucks at being a parent to Juan and Lita because she's 15 and needs a chance to be a teenager. Later, it's revealed her "parenting" methods are overly punitive and ineffectual, such as threatening to take both lunch and dinner away from Lita for throwing a tantrum in a store.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Lizzie works hard so that she can be reunited with her biological mother, Carla, whom she still loves and wants to return to. She fills out all the necessary forms on her mother's behalf, provides exaggerated stories of her time with Pete and Ellie to the judge so events sound worse than they actually were, and puts subtle pressure on Carla in court to testify she's ready to take them in again. However, on the day Carla is supposed to pick up her, Juan, and Lita and take them home with her, Sharon and Karen show up instead. They break the news that Carla isn't coming for them; having started reusing drugs, insisted Lizzie was the one who had arranged everything, and that she's incapable of being a mother.
- Tempting Fate: Pete and Ellie talk about how easy the kids are in group counseling, much to the other parents' amusement. Cue an absolutely disastrous Christmas dinner.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Lita loves potato chips and refuses to eat anything else, prompting a challenge from Pete and Ellie.
