FLIRTING WITH DISASTER ***

 This early David O Russell comedy already marked him out as a highly original talent as well as a superb director of actors. Ben Stiller, (less annoying than usual), is the guy travelling across America in search of his biological parents. They turn out to be a couple of drugged-up hippies played by Lily Tomlin and Alan Alda. Travelling with him is his new born, as yet unnamed, son, his wife Patricia Arquette and the oversexed nut-case from the adoption agency along to document the reunion, (a brilliant Tea Leoni). His adoptive parents are the highly neurotic Mary Tyler Moore and George Segal. Needless to say, neither the trip or the reunion itself go according to plan and among those they encounter en-route are a couple of gay federal agents, (who also come along for the ride), played by Richard Jenkins and Josh Brolin. In other words, this is as close to a contemporary screwball comedy as you're likely to get and it's laugh-out-loud funny. The performances throughout are excellent though it is Leoni and a surprisingly good Brolin who steal the picture. Outstanding.