The 2018 Mark Wahlberg movie, Instant Family, is now streaming on Netflix and audiences can’t get enough of this heartwarming comedy. Over the weekend, this feel-good family film shot to the top of Netflix’s Top 10 trending movie titles list, knocking off the Netflix original Nonnas from its No. 1 spot. Can you blame audiences for wanting to laugh and feel good, in times like these?
Directed by Sean Anders, who co-wrote the script with John Morris, Instant Family stars Wahlberg and Rosy Byrne as Pete and Ellie, as a childless married couple who take the leap to adopt foster children. Overnight, they find themselves from going from zero children, to three children (played by Isabela Merced, Gustavo Escobar, and Julianna Gamiz). Instant Family doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff, but it’s a much more light-hearted, funny take on the foster care experience than most movies that tackle the subject.
Also starring Margo Martindale, Julie Hagerty, Tig Notaro, and Octavia Spencer, Instant Family is the kind of sweet, authentic story that feels like it must be true. And in a way, it is. Read on to learn more about the Instant Family true story and the actual family that inspired Instant Family.
Instant Family is based on the true story of writer/director Sean Anders, who adopted foster care children. Just like Wahlberg’s character in the movie, Anders and his wife went from being a childless couple to the parents of three adopted children.
One of the biggest differences between the true story and the movie is that Anders and his wife did not adopt a teenage daughter, as Pete and Ellie do in the movie. But Isabela Moner’s character, Lizzy, was still inspired by a real life teen that Anders met during the adoption process. In an interview with RogertEbert.com, Anders explained that he and his wife Beth almost adopted a teenager, but that it didn’t work out.
“When my wife and I were going through the process, we went to an adoption fair, just like the one in the movie, and just like in the movie the teenagers were off by themselves,” Anders explained. “We did not want a teenager. We did not feel ready for that in any way. But like the characters in the movie, we ended up meeting this teenager, and she was very impressive and cool and had these younger siblings she had been taking care of. We were really scared at the thought of taking a teenager, but we wrote them down on our sheet. and we were matched with them.”
But after Anders began the adoption process for the teen and her siblings, they received a call that the girl had decided to refuse placement, in the hope that her mother would return.
“There wasn’t anything we could do about that, so it just scuttled,” Anders explained. “The social worker called back after that and said, ‘There are three other kids, if you’re still interested.’ Those are now my kids, and they were six, three, and eighteen months at the time. But that other girl, I never forgot her, and she was the genesis of the Lizzy character. “
Though Anders himself did not have experience raising a fostered teenager, he had conversations with other adopted teens and their families in an effort to accurately portray the experience. Maraide Green, a former foster care teen, served as a consultant on the film.
“[Maraide Green] had grown up in care and adopted as a teenager and had gone through a pretty tough transition with her family that became a loving bond,” Anders said in an interview with Fresh Fiction. “Even her adoptive mom was on set with us.”
One scene that was pulled straight from Anders’ own life is the moment when Pete and Ellie consider going back on their decision.
“There’s this scene where Pete and Ellie are in bed and they’re at their wits end,” Anders said in a different interview for Today. “They’re scared and lost and trying to figure out some way to go back to the quiet, easy life they had before. That scene is a very honest moment. I’m not proud of it, but it’s very true. When general audiences see that, I hear people gasping. But when adoptive families see it, they laugh because they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we totally had that conversation.'”
All that said, Anders didn’t feel like the movie is a one-to-one representation of his family, and didn’t see Wahlberg as playing him.
“The story really is a fictional tale that’s inspired by my story,” Anders said in an interview with Fresh Fiction. “But it’s also inspired by the stories of a lot of other families that I met along the way. I never felt like they were playing us exactly. There were definitely aspects of it and, look, it’s very flattering the thought of Mark Wahlberg playing me.”