Flirting with Disaster

Mel Coplin (Ben Stiller) and his wife, Nancy (Patricia Arquette), live in New York, near Mel's neurotic, Hebrew, adoptive parents, Ed (George Segal) and Pearl Coplin (Mary Tyler Moore). 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. He assures her that once he knows who he really is, the right name for their boy will be a snap. Meanwhile Mel and Nancy's sex life has taken a brutal hit since the birth of their son. After an adoption agency employee locates his biological mother's name in a database, Mel decides to meet her personally. Tina (Tea Leoni), 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. Tina is in the middle of a divorce; she is 30 years old and wants a baby of her own. Tina is finishing her dissertation (on the emotional and psychological impacts of the reunions) and will film the happy reunion of mother and child as part of her research. For this privilege, she's footing the bill. Mel's adoptive parents are left behind feeling abandoned by an ungrateful son. Ed says that his 60th birthday is coming up and he doesn't want Mel to miss it. Pearl cannot understand Mel's need to connect with his "roots", feeling that perhaps he feels that they were not good enough parents to him. 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 (Celia Weston), a blond Scandinavian woman with Confederate roots whose twin daughters are at least six inches taller than Mel. Valerie comes from an athletic family with Finnish and Scottish roots. They quickly realize that Valerie is not Mel's biological mother (as her son was born 2 years before Mel was born), and Tina scrambles to get the correct information from the agency database. Meanwhile, Nancy becomes jealous as Tina and Mel begin to flirt. Tina used to be an exotic dancer and that raises Nancy's anxiety further still. Tina and Mel playfully wrestle each other as Tina is into Indian wrestling as well. 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 (David Patrick Kelly), 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 (Josh Brolin) and Paul (Richard Jenkins), 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. While Mel and Tina become close, Nancy finds herself flirting with Tony, who returns the compliment, causing friction. The trip through rural New Mexico is fraught with more problems. At last, the whole crowd descends on the front porch of Mel's true biological parents, Richard (Alan Alda) and Mary Schlichting (Lily Tomlin). They are asked to stay the night. While Richard and Mary are more than welcoming, Mel's biological brother Lonnie (Glenn Fitzgerald) is overly rude and jealous. It is during dinner that Mel discovers that Richard and Mary had to let Mel be adopted because they were in jail for making and distributing LSD in the late 1960s. Not only that, but Richard and Mary continue to manufacture LSD, as becomes apparent when Lonnie, in an attempt to dose Mel with acid at dinner, accidentally doses Paul, the ATF agent. In his drugged state Paul tries to arrest Richard and Mary but Lonnie knocks him out with a frying pan. They attempt to escape and decide to take Mel's car, hiding their supply of acid in the trunk. Mel's adoptive parents arrive but then change their minds and decide to leave, taking the wrong car. When they change their minds again and make a blind U-turn, the two families crash. Mel's adoptive parents are arrested while his biological parents escape to Mexico. Not realizing what has happened Mel recounts the stories from dinner to Nancy and they agree to name the baby Garcia. Called to the Sheriff's office to bail out Ed and Pearl, Mel refers to them as his parents, which they are surprised and happy to hear. The next day Paul explains the situation and is able to get Mel's parents released. A montage of each family's personal relationships - Mel and Nancy, Paul and Tony and their Tina-arranged adopted baby, Ed and Pearl, the three Schlichtings, and a very pregnant Tina - continues over the credits. Each family still have their troubles, but Mel and Nancy are happy together.