Mixed or average reviews - based on 17 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 17
  2. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. 75
  3. 75
  4. 70
    It's probably not the last word in WASP angst, but it's eloquent, witty, graceful and as sharp as can be.
  5. It's a decorous film, conventionally well-made, but don't be fooled. Its emotional impact is considerable.
  6. Reviewed by: B.J. Sigesmund
    Stands as a wonderful ensemble piece not unlike Woody Allen's dramas "Interiors" and "September."
  7. Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    Has spasms of silliness that thaw things out delightfully. Davis plays Vartan's girlfriend as an irrepressible, sexed-up brat, and gives every line a little hop, skip, and jump.
  8. Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    Proficiently written and directed by newcomer Bart Freundlich, handsome pic brandishes traditional qualities in the areas of acting, character revelation and middlebrow seriousness, but operates within a familiar and narrow emotional range that provides little surprise or excitement.
  9. Less can sometimes be perceived as more, but in the case of The Myth of Fingerprints less is simply less.
  11. 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.
  13. Reviewed by: Denise Lanctot
    The first-rate cast is wasted serving up this melodramatic turkey.
  14. 50
    An overly mannered film drowning in the symptoms of dysfunction but unable to tap the root causes of this WASPish clan's pain except in the most oblique and cursory ways. This might be Freundlich's point, considering this family deals with its problems through avoidance.
  15. The film has a kind of echo-filled emptiness to it that some will take as profundity and others as mere emptiness.
  16. 40
    The Myth of Fingerprints is only 90 minutes long, but watching all this tasteful torment, you can't help thinking that if you were watching a Jewish family or an Italian one, the air would be cleared -- and you'd be out of the theater -- a hell of a lot quicker.
  17. As Freundlich surely knew, he must have counted, as do we, on the revelation of character to enrich the piece. It doesn't happen. None of the people is particularly interesting, not even the obligatory neurotic, well enough played by Julianne Moore. [6 October 1997, p. 28]

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