Flirting With Disaster . Metro Pulse . 09-21-98

Flirting With Disaster

DIRECTED BY: David Russell

REVIEWED: 09-21-98

David O. Russell's Flirting With Disaster (1996, R) knows exactly what it is—a fierce comedy that, like Mary, will leap over the good taste line to set up a killer joke. Of course, this shouldn't be much of a surprise given Russell's first big screener Spanking the Monkey, dwelled on such titillating topics as masturbation and incest with darkly comic results. Flirting shows that Russell's writing has matured—he chooses to tell a fairly straightforward looking-for-identity story without resorting to tickling taboos just for effect. Stiller's performance is simultaneously awkward and suave, capturing the emotional maelstrom that adopted child Mel goes through on his cross-country search for his birth parents. Patricia Arquette and Téa Leoni (who is surprisingly good) get swept along for the ride. Alan Alda, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, and Lily Tomlin milk their roles for every last drop of black humor. It's gratifying to see these actors cut loose in some truly outrageous parts, yet the film as a whole gets tedious by the final reel. When everything is larger than life, it slowly becomes hard to care about these exploded situations.

--Adrienne Martini

Capsule Reviews
Flirting With Disaster

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