Instant Family with One Lump of Sugar or Two?
There has long been a perception from at least half the country that Hollywood has not only abandoned them, but have openly and unabashedly sneered at them. The once sweet natured films about good people who struggle to do good things have been replaced with more cynical world weary films in possession of a new morality. The screwball comedies, the compelling dramas of everyday heroes, the dramas about families that pull apart and come back together still get made but are increasingly made for a hipper more urban audience. This new morality has overtaken the old, deigning to lecture us all about patriarchal trappings, the soft racism and sexism of low expectations, not to mention the oh so muddied waters of gender fluidity, homosexuality and all those other sexuality’s.
The perception has been that to Hollywood the religious right have become circus clowns and side show freaks in these films depicting the new morality, willingly offending even the most mediocre of religious adherents. This is sometimes done while simultaneously excusing Islam for its patriarchal hierarchy yet lecturing us all on how they’ve been marginalized by the Christian patriarchal power. Hollywood will preach the virtue of abortion and vilify Christian families who have the audacity to adopt…or so the perception goes. These movies embracing the new morality ain’t your granddaddy’s movies and they don’t make them like that any longer…or so it would seem.
It is just not true that Hollywood doesn’t make sweet natured films about upstanding people standing upright even if it is true they seem to be making fewer of them. They are likely making fewer of them because fewer people frequent theatrical releases of sweet natured films. Many of those lamenting the lack of Hollywood’s sweet natured product stopped frequenting theatrical releases of movies long ago and only become aware of some of these films because they stumbled upon it on cable or Netflix. They’ve become convinced Hollywood doesn’t make these movies any longer because they stopped going to the movies, and of course, they stopped going because too many times they shelled out money to watch a movie that makes fun of them and their values.
Instant Family, starring Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne as Pete and Ellie Wagner is the kind of movie the disaffected non-urbanites think Hollywood doesn’t make any more. Whatever Wahlberg’s political and philosophical leanings may be, as a producer he has consistently thrown his weight behind films that should appeal to those disaffected. From Lone Survivor to Patriots Day and Deepwater Horizon and now with Instant Family, Wahlberg has an affinity for good old fashioned sweet natured movies. All this musing over disaffected audiences of Hollywood may make it appear as if Instant Family represents the kind of classic film-making of Hollywood’s heyday, but it does not. Neither a great movie nor a lousy one, it is a sweet natured comedy about the struggles of raising adopted children.
Directed by Sean Anders (Daddy’s Home and its sequel) and written with John Morris it is loosely based upon some of Anders own experience with the subject. Pete and Ellie Wagner are a happily married couple who’ve individually prospered in their pursuits and have everything a happily married couple could hope for except for children. As fate would have it the Wagoners have been unable to conceive, but in-laws being what they are the pressure to produce offspring is ever-present. This pressure leads to the Wagner’s attending a workshop for foster parents taught by the very funny Karen（Octavia Spencer) and Sharon (Tig Notaro), which in turn leads to attending a fair where they can meet some foster kids up for adoption.
It is at the fair where Ellie is taken by a surly smart ass teenage girl. Naturally, neither of the Wagner’s imagined adopting a teenager but intrigued Ellie asks Karen and Sharon about her only to discover that beyond she being a teenager, she also comes with two younger siblings. If they were to adopt Lizzy the irascible teenage girl, they’d have to also adopt Juan and Lita (Gustavo Quiroz and Julianna Gamiz). Obviously much to take in and perhaps only going into the whole thing half heartedly, the Wagners begin backing off the whole adoption idea until Ellie sees how the in-laws react to this and their general derision at the notion of Pete and Ellie as parents.
Parents have become parents for dumber reasons than flipping the in-laws the bird, so the Wagner’s become conditional foster parents with an eye for adopting the three children. Of course, problems ensue as any good old fashioned movie about families coming together, pulling apart and coming back together do. The fun is in their struggle, but the whip smart jokes are a revelation. It is true that Hollywood, in general, is too comfortable in portraying the religious right as one dimensional straw men and worse, tearing down these poorly drawn straw men with weaker arguments that are never funny, but the quiet religious elements of Instant Family are gently laughed at with a sly wink and a bit of wisdom.
At one point Karen reminds Pete and Ellie that God never gives us more than we can handle, and Sharon counters with polite restraint; “I beg to differ on that.” This is a funny joke that is not made at the expense of religious belief, but made at the expense of hard knocks. It is hard to imagine what kind of Christian wouldn’t find that joke funny, and I can only imagine that only the one dimensional straw men of Hollywood’s writers imagination are those who wouldn’t laugh. Not all the jokes are whip smart and not all are funny, and the story is predictable but it is fun watching the predictions made true and both Wahlberg and Byrne are fun as a fun loving married couple who’ve come to realize the fun is over and now the hard part begins.
The kind of movie that reaffirms the importance of loving families, Instant Family is not interested in lecturing its audience, nor is it interested in preaching to choirs. All the movie really wants to do is entertain and it does a fairly good job of doing that.