The Myth of Fingerprints

Released 1996
Stars Noah Wyle, Julianne Moore, Roy Scheider, Blythe Danner, Michael Vartan, Laurel Holloman, Hope Davis, Brian Kerwin, Arija Bareikis, James LeGros
Directed by Bart Freundlich

In the movies, the holidays are times when dysfunctional families come together, air their differences, then renew their closeness so that everyone can go home happy. It's frequently a melodramatic and cloying process, and, even when there are gifted actors involved (such as Holly Hunter in the Jodie Foster-directed Home for the Holidays), watching such a film can be a dull, uninvolving process. With The Myth of Fingerprints, however, writer/director Bart Freundlich has scored a coup: he has created a low-key holiday drama that's refreshing not only because it lacks the big discovery melodrama of most similar movies but because it's entirely believable.

At its best, The Myth of Fingerprints is a sensitive, intelligent examination of the dynamics of a dysfunctional family (note: families in movies like this must always be dysfunctional, otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story). At its worst, which isn't often, Freundlich's feature debut runs into difficulties with cliches: the overbearing father who has left his "fingerprints" on the lives of each of his offspring, the search by various couples to rekindle the old flame, etc. One of the most atypical aspects of The Myth of Fingerprints is that it isn't loaded with "shocking" revelations – everything is pretty much as it seems and the friction between the characters is the result of normal causes rather than motion picture contrivances. Plus, in true slice-of-life fashion, hardly anything gets wrapped up over the course of the picture. We see a few small dramas play themselves out, but the larger story, which began long before the picture's opening credits, is not cleanly closed.

Summary by James Berardinelli

This is one of the few movies that revolves around Thanksgiving, and it's one of the best. It has too many characters for its short 90 minutes to be emotionally satisfying, but it's a fun slice-of-life with some normal people and a few quirky ones. Sometimes it's refreshing to just watch an event unfold without having to invest yourself in the backgrounds of the characters, and this is one of those times. --Bill Alward, November 22, 2002