In writer-director Bart Freundlich's debut film The Myth of Fingerprints, Wyle sticks with his strengths, playing a mildly troubled young man who returns home for the first time in three years to endure a family Thanksgiving. Joining him are a handful of brothers and sisters, most notably a brittle sister played by Julianne Moore (another watchable young actor who excels at being placidly uncomfortable). Amid a weekend of tense dinner conversations, the various siblings make stabs at reconciling with the root of their vague unhappiness--an aloof, alcoholic lech of a father played by Roy Scheider.

The Myth of Fingerprints has a memorable look, framed by the crisp, snow-covered landscapes of the American Northeast. Unfortunately, Freundlich's script and direction fall into the usual traps that befall a young artist, mainly an unsubstantiated faith in the power of his own words. He relies on pseudo-sophisticated, presumably witty dialogue about sex, relationships, and the pleasures of childhood, then breaks up this lightweight repartee with lengthy pauses that are meant to add poignancy but never really do.

Freundlich's main failing is that he can't ever convince us that these disconnected characters are in any way a family. They're all so busy being chilly that we never see them relate to each other at all--in either a positive or a negative way. They simply wander in front of the camera, air their petty gripes, and then wander out of frame, where they are quickly forgotten.