Mel Coplin departs on a mission of discovery dragging his wife and 4 month old son behind. He and wife, Nancy, won't agree on a name for their son until adopted Mel gets in touch with his roots. He assures her that once he knows who he really is, the right name for their boy will be a snap. Enlisting the aid of student-psychologist and part-time adoption agent, Tina Kalb, they embark on a journey across the United States to find Mel's "birth" mother. "The best part," Mel tells Nancy, "is it's all free." Tina is finishing her dissertation and will film the happy reunion of mother and child as part of her research. For this privilege, she's footing the bill. His adoptive parents are left behind feeling abandoned by an ungrateful son. Clerical errors, mistaken identities, Nancy's misplaced high school friend and his gay lover, and a super-charged libido here and there are thrown into the mix along the way until -- at last -- Mel's real parents, the Schlictings (mispronounced as "Shit-kings" by Mrs. Coplin), are discovered in remote New Mexico. There, Mel begins to wonder if he would have been better off not knowing these people, after all. Summary written by MARK FLEETWOOD {mfleetwo@mail.coin.missouri.edu} Five months after the birth of his son, Mel Coplin remains unable to name the child until he has met his own biological parents and discovered who he "really is." He, his wife Nancy, and his social-worker-in-training Tina Kalb jet off to California to meet his birth mother--who turns out not to be his mother, due to an error with the agency's adoption records. The quartet sets out in search of Mel's real parents, with tensions growing because of the sexual chemistry lacking between Mel and Nancy and growing between Mel and Tina.

release year: 1996

star(s): Alan Alda    Ben Stiller    Patricia Arquette