Only the phonies think it's funny. It's a mess.
- Humphrey Bogart
Bogart was talking about Beat the Devil, but the sentiment applies to this picture as well. It's worse than that, though - it's a wretched mess.
So another dysfunctional family gets together for another Thanksgiving of pain and anguish. The father's an ass, the mother's too good to be true, one daughter's a bitch, the other's a tomboy nympho, and the sons are wimps. The last time I saw this movie, it was called Home For The Holidays, and it was fairly good. It's a theme I return to often: balance. Balance in the storyline, balance in the tone, balance in the characterizations. The earlier movie had it - this one doesn't. The Myth Of Fingerprints gives me no reason to care about any of its characters, and no reason to pay any attention to the story, since nothing much ever happens.
It's a real shame to see good people, like Julianne Moore, Roy Scheider, Blythe Danner, James LeGros and Noah Wyle, wasted on a screenplay that goes nowhere and gives them so very little to do.