Instant Family (2018)

(Netflix Streaming, December 2019) I expected something quite different from Instant Family. At first glance of the plot summary, I expected a melodramatic paean to reconstituted family, what with a log-line having to do with a couple adopting three children at once. But I had missed a crucial name in the log line, which is to say director Sean Anders, who helmed such movies as Horrible Bosses 2, and both instalments of the Daddy’s Home series. Reuniting with Mark Wahlberg, the result often plays into the comic brand favoured by Wahlberg, with the expected sentimental fillip at the end. The hook here is a likable couple (Wahlberg and Rose Byrne, once again proving her talents for comedy) deciding to adopt a kid, but finding themselves unwilling to break up the group of three siblings. Having instantly acquired a family of five, our protagonists have quite a few adventures in store. The laughs, fortunately, are there: There’s a memorable Christmas meal that got a few laughs out of me, and some of the support group materials is so natural (in a good way) that it feels improvised. But while Instant Family spends some time in fun and games, it all leads to a surprisingly heartfelt conclusion in which all the emotional strings are cleverly tightened. There is a bit of an expected plot cheat when it comes to resolving the issue of the biological mother acting as a loose antagonist, but you can’t have the happy ending without resolving that one. In the same mode than the Daddy’s Home series but somewhat more successful on the emotional front, Instant Family is a pleasant surprise fit for family viewing.