Flirting with Disaster

Mel Coplin is a new father living in New York who cannot bring himself to name his baby son until he learns who his own biological parents are. Adopted as a child, he sets out to find them, joined by his wife Nancy and by Tina Kalb, a woman connected to the adoption agency who accompanies the couple and films the search for her own research. The trip turns chaotic as mistaken identities, wrong turns and increasingly erratic encounters send the journey off course and strain the relationships among the travelers.

David O. Russell wrote and directed the film, his second feature after Spanking the Monkey, and it was produced by Dean Silvers. Ben Stiller plays Mel, with Patricia Arquette as Nancy and Téa Leoni as Tina. Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal appear as Mel's adoptive parents, Pearl and Ed, and Alan Alda plays Richard Schlichting. The film runs 93 minutes and was made for about 7 million dollars.

Released in March 1996, Flirting with Disaster is a comedy that earned roughly 15 million dollars worldwide, a return well above its production budget. Audience response has been moderately positive: it holds a 6.7 rating on IMDb from around 21,000 votes, and a 6.2 on TMDB from a much smaller number of votes.