Instant Family

Instant Family (2018) is Sean Anders' comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Pete and Ellie planned on one kid. They walked out of foster care with three.

Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne play a couple who wander into the adoption system half by accident and leave as parents to a sibling trio. The eldest, fifteen-year-old Lizzy (Isabela Merced), trusts no adult and keeps one foot out the door. The two younger ones swing between clinging and screaming, sometimes within the same hour. Nobody hands Pete and Ellie a manual. They figure it out as they go, fumbling through curfews, meltdowns and the sting of being called "not my real parents."

Anders based the film on raising adopted children of his own, and it shows in the small stuff: the awkward dinners, the fights over nothing, the rare moments when the wall finally cracks. Octavia Spencer and Tig Notaro turn up as the social workers whose dry one-liners cut through the heaviest scenes. Stream Instant Family (2018) online on iFILM.