Das Familiengeheimnis

Greetings again from the darkness. Caught this one on IFC and was really impressed with the ensemble cast. Especially great work from Julianne Moore, who's role in lesser hands would have crushed the film. Beautifully shot in Maine, the scenery and warm home almost lull you into normalcy. However, the characters shock you into the ultimate dysfunctional family. No warm holiday fuzzies here. A couple of great scenes with Noah Wylie. First, with him alone in bed, while everyone else in the house is "intimately involved". Also, a flashback scene showing a moment of true weakness with his father, and the subsequent 3 years of guilt he carries. Good stuff. My tidbit on this one involves the tangled web of the cast and crew. "Roseanne" series ties together 3 of the actors, while Julianne Moore and Laurel Holloman worked together on "Boogie Nights". Also director Bart Freundlich and Moore parented a child together. Aah, the close knit fabric on independent filmmaking! Worth a rental.

I didn't know a thing about this movie until I rented it last night. After it ended, my wife said, "What was the point of that? It's like there was a hidden camera in somebody's house, but there was nothing interesting for the hidden camera to see." That was the problem with "The Myth of Fingerprints": we watched a group of uninteresting characters not do anything interesting for an hour-and-a-half.

Here are our characters.

1. DAD (Roy Scheider) - Dull and silent. When drunk, acts drunk.

2. MOM (Blythe Danner) - Acts like a mom.

3. BIG SISTER (Julianne Moore) - Bitter and annoying. And bitter. A completely unpleasant character...but not even interestingly unpleasant. Just bitter.

4. BIG BROTHER (Noah Wylie) - Cute and bland. Broke up with GIRLFRIEND and acts depressed until he gets back together with her.

5. LITTLE SISTER - Cute, perky, and bland.

6. LITTLE BROTHER - Doesn't do anything. Don't know why he's in the script at all, except as an excuse to write his cute, perky, and bland GIRLFRIEND into the movie.

7. BIG SISTER'S HUSBAND (or maybe BOYFRIEND) - Cute and bland. Bickers with insufferable BIG SISTER.

Well, that's our cast. What do they do? Get together for Thanksgiving and spend a few dinners together, then go home. Meanwhile, the big "conflicts" in the plot include:

1. BIG SISTER acts like a jerk and annoys everyone (including the audience).

2. BIG BROTHER finds out that GIRLFRIEND broke up with him because DAD acted drunk some time ago.

3. All characters search for something to say and do to fill up the screen time, but fail, mostly.

Well, that's our plot. Not much conflict, not much character development. Suddenly, the screen fades to black, then the credits roll. I can't recall a time when I felt LESS involved in a movie than this one. What was the point? To show how bland a family Thanksgiving dinner can be? If that was the goal, then the movie accomplished it, with flying colors.

Ok, in all I loved this movie. I kept returning to a comparison of the other kids come home for another painful thanksgiving with the people you feel you have outgrown movie, Home for the Holidays. The Myth of Fingerprints was much darker, and in that way a little more real. No slap stick or cotton candy can be found in this film. However, this can also be looked at as a detriment. Other than an old movie shown twice in the film we see no evidence that this family ever liked, or even had any sort of playful feelings for each other. The joking atmosphere that mists about most families is conspicuously absent in this movie. So much so that you are nearly shocked to see Warren (Noah Wylie's character) attempt to comfort his sister Mia (Julianne Moore)when she is so obviously upset by something. You expect him to do as the rest of the family did: leave her there. They try to be a family. Warren, Leigh, and their mother (Blythe Danner) are the most accessible of this wacked out crew seeming to be the most feeling and tender. The father, Hal, and Mia are emotionally unavailable and distant, but Mia shows glimmers of hope every once in a while especially in her exchanges with her brothers and childhood sweetheart. Hal on the other hand remained a complete mystery to me. We see him trying to steal his son's girlfriend in one scene and watching home movies getting teary eyed at the sight of his young children in the next. I was barely aware that the eldest brother Jake was in the film, he was of little consequence but for one scene with Mia which is cut short in favor of sex with his girlfriend. They were all such very different people with one important thing in common. They loved their family and had no idea why. I think that's what it comes down to for all of us. After leaving home the first time we come back we look around and think, "Who the hell are these people?" I don't know if we ever figure out the answer to that question ever again. But I do know that one day, years after we asked it for the first time, we realize that whether we know who they are or not they are part of us and we love them. Even if we have to confront them, dislike them, or are forced to sever ties with them. It's just the way it is. "You have to remember the good things. They remind you of who you are." - The Myth of Fingerprints

As those who can personally relate to this story well understand, not all stories about damaged families can have resolution and closure. The Myth of Fingerprints is quite honest in that regard. The story provides some explanation of what happened but not why, much like real life. What we do get is richly painted characters provided by strong performances, good writing, and good direction who tell us their story and allow us to draw our own conclusions. It's well worth the effort for those who appreciate a drama that doesn't take short cuts and permits the characters to tell their own stories instead of spoon feeding the audience and neatly wrapping everything up like an unwanted birthday present.

Working within a tired construct, this movie puts stereotypes and almost-characters in painfully self-conscious "real-life" situations within which they ape human reactions. Although the plot is reliant upon a buildup of tension, no such progression comes, and nothing changes for any of the (mostly inexplicably) bitter characters who congregate in the family home for a supposedly revealing and explosive holiday reunion. This profoundly irritating story is clumsily written, poorly shot and populated by dull, unsympathetic and self-involved characters. Its 90 minutes felt like days.