Flirting with Disaster 1996

     Mel Coplin was adopted and he's looking for his birth mother and family.  He has contacted student-psychologist, part-time adoption agent Tina Kalb.  She will go with Mel, his wife Nancy and their young son to meet Mel’s mother Valerie.  Mel’s agency will cover the trip since this is part of her dissertation and research.  They leave New York for San Diego to meet Valerie.  She is a blond Scandinavian woman with roots in the Confederacy.  She has twin daughters that look nothing like Mel.  Tina finds out the computer has made a mistake and this is not Mel’s mother.  Next, they go to Battle Creek, Michigan to meet Mel’s father Fritz Boudreau.  This is another mistake because Fritz handled Mel’s adoption for his biological parents.  Now they are going to rural New Mexico to meet Richard and Mary Schlichting.  The Schlichting also have Mel’s biological brother Lonnie.  He's not taking the sudden arrival of a brother very well and he’s overly rude and very jealous.  With so many mistakes, Mel’s adoptive parents are worried and they travel to New Mexico from New York.

     Mel and Nancy haven’t named their son yet and he’s almost a year old?  They’ve been waiting to learn more about Mel’s biological parents.  Nancy isn’t happy with Tina traveling with them but she’s overruled.  It seems as if the next mother or father gets more weird as they travel.  Most of the time, they don’t look anything like Mel.  There is so much traveling and so much confusion.  It almost seems like you are actually on this trip and there are too many problems?  2 ½* (This movie was just so-so)

92 min, Comedy directed by David O. Russell with Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, Richard Jenkins, Josh Brolin, Celia Weston, Glenn Fitzgerald.

Note:  Imdb 6.8 out of 10, 87% critic 69% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 3 ½*, Amazon 3.3* out of 5* with 206 reviews, Metacritic 81 out of 100 with 16 critics.

Special Note:  Filmed in Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Michigan; Tucson, Cave Creek, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Marana, Arizona.  Ben Stiller and the director David O. Russell didn’t get along during filming and they had many arguments.  Time Magazine chose this film as one of the Best of Film 1996 as #7 in their year- end issue of December 23, 1996.