Movie Review
Instant Family (2018)

As someone who is care experienced, I’m always a little cautious about films about foster care. Care-experienced children are often shown as either damaged and difficult, or as children waiting for the right family to come along and “save” them.

 

Instant Family isn’t perfect, but I was surprised by how much of it resonated with me. The film follows Pete and Ellie, who become foster carers to three siblings: Lizzy, Juan and Lita. They quickly realise that opening your home to a child and making them feel safe, loved and part of a family are very different things. That was probably the part that stood out most to me.

 

When you’ve experienced adults leaving, instability or relationships that haven’t felt safe, you don’t suddenly trust someone because they tell you that you can. Sometimes pushing people away, appearing independent or testing whether someone will stay can make complete sense when you look at what a young person has experienced.

 

I particularly connected with Lizzy. She is independent, protective of her younger siblings and often keeps Pete and Ellie at a distance. The film could easily have presented her simply as a “difficult teenager”, but you gradually understand why she behaves as she does. She has learnt to rely on herself and has taken on responsibility for her siblings that no child really should have had to carry.

 

I also appreciated that the sibling relationship was so central. Pete and Ellie aren’t creating a family from scratch, they are joining one that already exists. For many children in care, siblings can be one of the few consistent relationships they have, and I thought the film captured the importance of that well.

 

There is also a lot of humour, which I enjoyed, as being care experienced doesn’t mean every memory or part of your life is sad or traumatic. Care can be chaotic, funny, loving, frustrating and ridiculous, sometimes all at once.

 

There are still things I would challenge. The story is mainly told through the foster carers’ eyes, and at times I found myself wondering how different the film would feel if Lizzy were telling it. The ending is also much neater than real life usually is. Finding a permanent family doesn’t suddenly undo everything that came before it, and love alone doesn’t erase trauma, fear or complicated feelings about your birth family.

 

I’m also wary of any story that makes foster carers or adopters the “rescuers”. Children in care shouldn’t have to feel grateful for being given safety, stability and love, those are things every child deserves.

 

But one thing Instant Family gets right is that relationships aren’t built through one big moment. They are built through consistency; staying after an argument, coming back after someone pushes you away, repairing things when they go wrong, and showing someone over time that you mean what you say. For me, that is where the film has the most heart.

 

It isn’t a perfect representation of foster care, and no film could represent every care-experienced person’s story, but underneath the Hollywood comedy, there are some genuinely thoughtful messages about trust and belonging.

 

And perhaps most importantly, it shows that care-experienced children don’t need fixing. They need adults who are willing to understand what sits behind the behaviour, keep showing up, and give trust the time it needs to grow.