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Thanksgiving will soon be upon us, with all of the family obligations, food and maudlin sentimentality that holidays bring. Sure, it’s great to see relatives, but there is always a nagging feeling that home is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there. For those of you familiar with this experience, we recommend the fine film The Myth of Fingerprints – director Bart Freundlich’s 1997 tribute to dysfunctional families.
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This is a small independent film that does what small independent films at their best do – discuss issues and situations in a way that encourages reflection among the viewers. The movie deals with a family that coming together for Thanksgiving, and all of the problems that bubble forth from beneath the surface as they do. A very strong cast includes Julianne Moore, Noah Wyle, Roy Schneider and Blythe Danner.
It is Schneider, though, who gives the strongest performance in his role as a strong-willed father who doesn’t particularly care for his kids but does appreciate the girlfriends they bring home. His character could easily have been written as an after-school special caricature who goes around pawing at young women. But instead, he is portrayed as little more than a bored old man long ago drained of vitality who clumsily tries to act on his otherwise repressed fantasies only when drunk, and even then only half-heartedly.
Noah Wyle’s character, Warren, is the focus of the film, and Wyle shows that his critically-acclaimed acting on "ER" can translate to the big screen. His nuanced relationship with his father and siblings is carefully explored, but the script thankfully avoids offering neat solutions to his problems by the end of the film.
This, indeed, is the strength of The Myth of Fingerprints. Unlike other directors who try to unfold and then tidy up complex problems in 90 minutes or so, Freundlich recognizes the depth of the issues facing these characters – issues that have been developing since birth. The film, then, rightly only hints at any sort of change.
The ambiguity of the family members toward one another is refreshing. There are no cardboard cutouts filling stock characters to round out the storyline. And, there is no grand purpose to their actions. Each, in their own way, evokes apathy toward institutions of family, church and local community.
Like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, this film suggests a dichotomy between bright surface appearances and a darker core reality underneath. The family should be happy – the parents are not divorced, there was no physical abuse, the children and parents all have healthy sex lives (as demonstrated repeatedly throughout the movie). The Norman Rockwell set-up of a family gathered for thanksgiving at idyllic house set against glorious a landscape contrasts with the dysfunction that characterizes their interactions (it is interesting to note that Rockwell’s paintings are themselves being re-examined as depicting such tensions).
While less visually disturbing than Lynch’s tour de force, this movie is in a sense more disturbing for being less over-the-top. While we may unlikely to run into someone like Ben from Blue Velvet, Myth’s Warren seems like a distinct possibility. Freundlich brings forth something fundamental about American families, something many of us might prefer were left unearthed.
While it is true that The Myth of Fingerprints is probably too short and too empty for consideration as a masterpiece, it does illuminate the niche filled by independent films in America. It also serves the useful function of allowing viewers to explore the sadness lurking beneath the surface of many families with the safety and distance the screen provides.
