The film's title originates from Paul Simon's 1986 song "All Around the World or the Myth of Fingerprints" and is a reference to the idea of blood ties and differing personalities amongst family members.

Jake cannot bring himself to admit his love for Margaret, while Warren, still pining for his ex-girlfriend Daphne, meets up with her while in town and learns some upsetting news which leads to a physical confrontation with his father.

[8] The performances of the ensemble cast were praised,[9] with Todd McCarthy of Variety noting "Freundlich has a knack for clever, amusing lines that reveal character traits and attitudes.

[11][10] Charles Taylor of Salon called Moore a "startlingly intelligent actress,” but noted in the film she is stuck playing a “conception, not a part.

[11] Taylor concluded, "The Myth of Fingerprints, with its sensitive acoustic music and finicky composed shots of wintry landscapes and relentlessly subdued tone, is a reminder of the problem identified by Pauline Kael in her reviews of Interiors and Ordinary People: Movies about WASP repression invariably wind up aping the tidy, stultified lives they're meant to reveal.

The Myth of Fingerprints is only 90 minutes long, but...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.

"[11] In October 1997, Serena Donadoni of the Detroit Metro Times compared it to The House of Yes, another Thanksgiving-based family drama which premiered at Sundance 1997 and later received a theatrical release in the fall of that year.

Donadoni wrote, "Thanksgiving, the anathema of dysfunctional families, is the focus of two very different film debuts: The Myth of Fingerprints, from writer-director Bart Freundlich, and The House of Yes, directed by Mark Waters (no relation to John), who adapted it from Wendy MacLeod's play."