Synopsis

New father Mel Coplin refuses to name his baby until he learns the identity of his biological parents. Accompanied by his wife, their infant son, and an adoption agency worker, Mel begins a cross-country search that quickly veers through mistaken identities, dangerous strangers, romantic complications, and unexpected detours. The journey forces him to reconsider what really defines a family.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film was released in the United States on March 22, 1996. It was made on an estimated $7 million budget and earned approximately $14.7 million worldwide.

• It served as the closing film in the Special Screenings section of the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.

• The story drew partly on personal experiences from the filmmaker's life: his sister was adopted and searching for her biological parents, while he had recently become a father himself.

• Burt Reynolds was considered for a role, but he ultimately did not appear after the filmmaker decided against working with him following reports about Reynolds' behavior on the set of The Larry Sanders Show.

• Dick Van Dyke was offered the role of Richard Schlichting. Mary Tyler Moore was initially intended to play the character's wife, which would have reunited the pair associated with The Dick Van Dyke Show, but she instead took the role of Pearl Coplin.

• Time ranked the film seventh in its list of the best movies of 1996.

• The VHS and LaserDisc editions included extra scenes during the end credits that revealed what happened to several characters. Those scenes were not included on the DVD release.