Flirting with Disaster

A young man, his wife, and his incompetent case worker travel across country to find his birth parents.

• Director:David O. Russell
• Genre:Comedy
• Runtime:114 minutes

Cast

Ben Stiller : Mel Coplin
Patricia Arquette: Nancy Coplin
Téa Leoni : Tina Kalb
Mary Tyler Moore: Pearl Coplin
George Segal : Ed Coplin

Mel Coplin and his wife, Nancy, live in New York, near Mel’s neurotic, Jewish, adoptive parents, Ed and Pearl Coplin. Mel and Nancy have just had their first child, and they refuse to name their son until Mel can discover the identity of his biological parents. After an adoption agency employee locates his biological mother’s name in a database, Mel decides to meet her personally.

Tina, the sexy but highly incompetent adoption agency employee, decides to accompany Mel, Nancy, and the newborn on a trip to San Diego to meet Mel’s biological mother. The trip, of course, does not go as planned, and ends up becoming a tour of the United States.

First, Mel is introduced to Valerie, a blond Scandinavian woman with Confederate roots whose twin daughters are at least six inches taller than Mel. They quickly realize that Valerie is not Mel’s biological mother, and Tina scrambles to get the correct information from the agency database. Meanwhile, Nancy becomes jealous as Tina and Mel begin to flirt.

Next, the group heads to rural Michigan with the hope of meeting the man whose name appears as the person who delivered infant Mel to the adoption agency. The man, Fritz Boudreau, turns out to be a trucker with a violent streak. However, when he discovers that Mel might be his son, he becomes instantly friendly and lets Mel drive his semi-trailer truck, which Mel immediately crashes into a Post Office building.

This leads to a run-in with two ATF agents, Tony and Paul, who are gay and in a relationship with each other. It is discovered that Tony and Nancy went to high school together. Charges are dismissed, and Fritz Boudreau tells Mel that he is not Mel’s father, but only handled Mel’s adoption because Mel’s biological parents were incapacitated. Tina locates the current address of Mel’s biological parents, which turns out to be in rural New Mexico. Tony and Paul surprise everyone by deciding to tag along on the trip. Read more

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