Metacritic reviews

Instant Family is a decent, involving, endearing story, with funny performances and heartfelt, entirely earned dramatic crescendoes.

Successfully walking the line between sharp comedy and thoughtful dramedy, Instant Family delivers, warming the heart and generating plenty of belly laughs. When it’s funny, as it often is, it’s damn funny. One of the superior comedies of the year, it’s not a classic, but it’s rich, smart and emotionally satisfying and an accomplished step forward for director Sean Anders.

At its heart (and it’s a big corny heart, for sure), the film’s message is one of unconditional love and embracing family wherever you find it. It’s hard to argue with. Especially when it’s served up with such spiky laughter-through-tears sweetness.

It redefines family craziness as normal in a way that those who seek it out will gratefully relate to.

While the film commits errors of taste and tact, and is generally all over the place from start to finish, those issues come off here as byproducts of a certain generosity — a sense that Anders wants to convey a full range of experience, including the messy stuff in between the usual formulaic notes and beats.

Instant Family balances its sitcom tone with some real, unexpected heart.

In the roller coaster between serious and silly that Instant Family bounces along on, Byrne is the Fast-Pass holder, and she makes this uneven dramedy a hoot, and more importantly, makes it work.

While the movie doesn’t shy away from confronting the obstacles of foster parenthood, it never fully earns its happy ending.

Never as hackneyed as it is heartfelt, Instant Family takes the stuff of real life and turns it into a touching reminder of what love can do for the people who need it.

If you’re going to tackle serious subject matter, maybe don’t run it through tacky fluff that amounts to a fleeting sugar high. Sure, this movie will get all the right oohs and aahs, sighs and sobs — it certainly won over the freebie test audience at my screening, good god — but it won’t linger.