FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: FLIRTING WITH DISASTER is more a
chain of quirky scenes than a single cohesive film.
Ben Stiller plays a man, adopted as a child, who
takes a trip to meet his biological parents. He
takes his wife, his baby, and a psychologist intent
on studying the meeting. Along the way the
entourage grows and goes from one grotesque
situation to the next. The quirky humor is hit-
or-miss and generally not quite good enough to make
up for the off-center feeling of the style.
Rating: low +1 (-4 to +4)
Most novels and most scripts are written first with an overall plan of what the story is that is going to be told and where is it going to go. FLIRTING WITH DISASTER seems to have been written instead one scene at a time in the faith that when the time comes to write the next scene that the inspiration will come as to what to put into that scene and how it should unfold. To the film's credit, a story did result without writer (and director) David O. Russell writing himself into a corner. And this style of writing has the advantage of keeping the viewer guessing what is going to happen next, since the author may very well not know either. But after the film is over it also leaves the audience with the uneasy feeling that they do not know where they have been. When all is said and done we have seen eggshell-thin portrayals of a lot of different kinds of characters from many different walks of life, but nothing to touch the audience and no reason to care about any of the characters, making a film that is just vaguely dissatisfying.
Mel Coplin (played by Ben Stiller) is off on an odyssey to find his real parents. Like the original Odyssey it seems at the start like it should be an easy trip, but Mel finds that it is more arduous than he expects. And along the way he travels through whole worlds he never expected to see close up. Along on the trip is his fleshy wife Nancy (Patricia Arquette) and his new-born son, whom Mel hopes to be able to name after a member of his real family. Also along is Tina Kalb, a willowy psychologist (Tea Leoni) sent by the adoption agency to record and study the experience. The first problem: Mel's parents (Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal) are dead-set against him making the trip and try every manipulative trick in the parent book to get Mel to give up the idea. The traveling companions soon find relations strained with a temperamental Nancy jealous of the attention that Mel and Tina give each other. Relations are further strained when the trip goes weirdly awry. The company get to see a lot more of the country than they bargained for and as more people join the party there are even stranger relationships to be strained.
This is the kind of story that Albert Brooks does extremely well. In fact there are parts of this film that are strongly reminiscent of Brooks's REAL LIFE and LOST IN AMERICA. Unfortunately, Russell has a long way to go before he can match Brooks's wit and his characterizations. It is in the characterizations, in fact, that Russell fails the worst. Brooks can make his characters likable at the same time that they are strange and there is often a feeling of recognition in his people. Russell has real problems humanizing his characters. His people are just a little bit too bizarre and exaggerated; his humor is just too leaden-handed. For example, Brooks would not be likely to have a character rip open her blouse to try to show her family the benefits of a support bra. Under Russell's direction none of the characters has any real human appeal. They seem more like dolls getting into funny situations. The editing by Christopher Tellefsen is often confusing or just crude, like in an amateur film. There also seems to be a very noticeable continuity error involving a wheel of brie.
In spite of many bits that were funny, FLIRTING WITH DISASTER just does not hang together as a film and, in spite of positive critical comment it has received, rates a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews