Flirting with Disaster (1996)

Plan: After the birth of his son, Mel (Ben Stiller) seeks out his birth parents with his wife, Nancy (Patricia Arquette), and a case worker, Tina (Téa Leoni), much to the chagrin of his adoptive parents (Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal).

There's a thing about watching David O. Russell movies, kind of like how I always say there's a thing about Wes Anderson movies or how I recently said that there's a thing about Terrence Malik movies. In any case, there are certain writers and directors that you instantly know when you are watching one of their pictures. For some it's style, for others it's thematic, and still others it's content. For David O. Russell, it's audience reaction.

First of all, while the sentence I typed above sounds like a simple enough plot, things are never simple in Russell's world. Everything always goes wrong. Not just in the movie way that things go wrong in order to draw out a three sentence pitch into a full length feature. Things go wrong in a very special way in a Russell movie: they go wrong for no discernible reason, and there is no real solution to the inanity. Only the most absurd things can occur, yet the follow their own special Russellian logic.

And so it goes for you, the viewer. The first few minutes seem normal. Then sense flies out of the window and you start to wonder what the heck you're watching. You're compelled to roll with it, and, suddenly, in spite of your objections or perhaps because of them, you realize that you are enjoying yourself.

Personally, I found this one a little too warm family fuzzies and a little less absurd than I would have liked, but that's how it goes with Russell. The work is sort of on the same vibe as the previously viewed material and completely different. I'll have to watch it a few more times to be certain of exactly where I stand with it and it with me. B

Should you be concerned about the dearth of reviews, please remind yourselves that it's February. Besides catching up on the contenders, there's really nothing to see in the first few months of the year.