Light diversion from Woody Allen. The topic of adoption might momentarily quicken the pulses of critics of a biographical-psychological bent. (Mia Farrow reference. ) But the movie doesn't really hit its stride till it ventures outside the family nucleus, as the distinctly unathletic New York sportswriter (Allen), fretting about the possibility of having opened his door to a Bad Seed and potential axe murderer, searches out his infant's birth mother, following a trail of aliases from Leslie Wales to Leslie St. Clair to Linda Ash to Judy Cum, and finding someone not exactly on an intellectual par with Susan Sontag: a hooker, part-time porn actress ("Did you ever see The Enchanted Pussy?"), and sometime beautician. Their initial encounter ("Are you my three o'clock?") is deftly written and played, a one-sided recognition of their total discord; and Mira Sorvino, affecting a blaring trumpety voice that complements Jennifer Tilly's fluty one in Bullets over Broadway, is a minor revelation throughout. The use of a literal Greek chorus, with its hammering reminders of the Oedipus myth, adds little to the proceedings besides superfluous testimony to the filmmaker's erudition. Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Rapaport, Peter Weller. (1995) — Duncan Shepherd