Esther McCarthy reviews 'Instant Family' and 'All Is True'

Instant Family (12A) ****

Rose Byrne and Mark Wahlberg make a nice pairing as Pete and Ellie, a couple who explore trying to start a family but who stumble into the world of foster care adoption.

Moved by a website listing scores and scores of children looking for a home, they decide to open their home to a child and embark on a foster parenting course. On an open day, where teenage children are rarely approached by perspective parents, they briefly meet Lizzie (Isabella Moner) a sassy teen with two younger siblings.

Before they know it they’ve signed up to bring home all three of them. But Lizzie’s initial sass quickly becomes a daily challenge to authority as she tests the couple repeatedly. Her sensitive little brother and demanding kid sister, meanwhile, bring concerns of their own.

Writer and director Sean Anders (Daddy’s Home) has created a movie based loosely on some of his own experiences as a foster parent, and it shows.

The laughs are frequent but the sincerity of the whole endeavour is never under any doubt. Pete and Ellie are barely aware of how parenthood is going to transform them, and their desire for their love to be reciprocated is by turns funny and very moving.

All is True (12A) ***

Kenneth Branagh, Judi Dench and Ian McKellen co-star in this drama about William Shakespeare which Branagh also directs.

It’s set in the years following 1613, when Shakespeare’s beloved Globe Theatre burns to the ground, sending him back to his family in Stratford. Haunted by past family traumas and present challenges, this thoughtful drama looks at the secrets and lies within his own home.