The Myth of Fingerprints

Name: The Myth of Fingerprints
Director: Bart Freundlich
Released: 1997

Synopsis

When a New England dysfunctional family gathers for Thanksgiving, past demons reveal themselves as one son returns for the first time in three years.

75
ReelViews
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.
75
Rolling Stone
This engrossing blend of humor and heartbreak only hints at the causes, from betrayal to child abuse, of this family's dysfunction. Hang on. Attention is richly rewarded.
70
Newsweek
Stands as a wonderful ensemble piece not unlike Woody Allen's dramas "Interiors" and "September."
67
Austin Chronicle
Less can sometimes be perceived as more, but in the case of The Myth of Fingerprints less is simply less.
63
San Francisco Examiner
Freundlich's problem is that he has made an essentially interesting movie that never seems brave enough to say what it really intends.
60
The New York Times
Has some good performances (Ms. Moore's ongoing snit is a terrifically sustained bit of glowering), but it only barely begins to knit its self-pitying characters into a credible family unit. They are oddballs with attitude.
50
San Francisco Chronicle
When all is fretted and done, there's little dramatic payoff in this moody first feature by Bart Freundlich. But cinematographer Stephen Kazmierski's images are appealing, and the mood is on target -- Thanksgiving as hell.
50
Washington Post
The film has a kind of echo-filled emptiness to it that some will take as profundity and others as mere emptiness.