Instant Family

Sean Anders built the film from his own adoption; he and his wife took in three siblings who were 6, 3 and 18 months old when they met. The 15 year old Lizzy at the centre comes from somewhere else. At an adoption fair the couple had earlier matched with a teenage girl and her two younger siblings, and she turned the placement down, still hoping her mother was coming back for her. The child who carries the script therefore comes from a match that never happened, and the film makes the child’s right to refuse a subject. Anders and his co-writer John Morris sat first with families who had adopted teenage girls, then with the girls themselves. Maraide Green, whom they met that way and who grew up in foster care, gave notes on the script and stayed on as a consultant. The closing credits run photographs of real foster families. Shooting was in Atlanta in the spring of 2018. A good fit if you want the training classes played for comedy while the children’s birth mother stays in the story. Not for anyone reading the poster as a film for young children; the BBFC 12A record lists a mother addicted to heroin, an 11 year old hooked on meth, and explicit photographs sent to a 15 year old.