Rose Byrne and Mark Wahlberg spark as a couple who take on three children in this schmaltzy but big-hearted comedyDirector Sean Anders has parlayed whatever goodwill he earned making those Daddy’s Home knockabouts with Mark Wahlberg into filming a light comic illustrated lecture on the ups and downs of adoption.
On paper, Instant Family sounds unapproachably mawkish: Wahlberg and Rose Byrne play Pete and Ellie, a Californian couple circling 40 whose tentative exploration of fostering brings three Latino waifs across their well-ordered threshold.
In fact, the worst anyone could say about the finished feature is that it plays a little square when set against the alternative parenting models Us TV now routinely depicts.Very sweet, funny when it needs to be, and evidently drawn from personal experience, it’s not unlike an update of those slickly packaged Lowell Ganz/Babaloo Mandel comedies that were once in Hollywood vogue.Continue reading.
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