74. Flirting with Disaster

Tony (Josh Brolin): Do you want to take a shower? I mean, together?

Nancy (Patricia Arquette): Let me go get my shower cap.

This exchange, between a bisexual ATF agent and a new mother contemplating infidelity, summarizes the mindset of the characters in David O. Russell’s (Three Kings) second film. They are looking to do something beyond them, something that will change everything, but their essence keeps bringing them back to Earth. Add in a bookcase full of glass animals, a Mack truck, the Bed and Breakfast from hell and two and a half tabs of LSD, and you get this underrated gem of a screwball comedy, which launched the careers of Russell and star Ben Stiller.

Ostensibly, Disaster is the saga of Mel Coplin (Stiller), a neurotic New Yorker with a four-month old baby who can't bring himself to name the child until he locates his own birth parents. Along with his wife (Arquette), the baby and the adoption agency rep who claims to have located them, he embarks on a road trip that results in a glut of inspired lunacy. Among all those unforgettable cameos (Alan Alda, Mary Tyler Moore, Lily Tomlin), madcap misunderstandings and sexually charged moments of tension, however, is a slew of characters that somehow manage to be comical, unique and so very real all at the same time.

Mel thinks that meeting his parents will reveal the confident go-getter within; Nancy wants someone to tell her she's still pretty; Tina (Tea Leoni) wants to be an independent career woman; Tony and Paul (a flawless Richard Jenkins) are trying to convince each other that they're meant to start their own family. Russell strikes gold by taking this group, leading them to the edge, and then making them realize that what they've always wanted was right there in the mirror all along. If all comedies had so much heart, if all "self-discovery" films were so damn funny, then each would be flirting with perfection. (Larry Carroll)