"The Daytrippers": Greg Mottola

U.S.A.

Friday, 11:30 a.m., Saturday, 1:30 p.m.

From all appearances, Eliza and her husband, Louis, seem to have a solid marriage: open communication, hot sex, he gets along with her parents. Yet one morning after Louis has gone to work, Eliza finds what looks suspiciously like a love letter written to him by one "Sandy."

The next thing you know, Eliza and her entire family, including her working-class parents (Pat McNamara, Ann Meara), her artsy sister, Jo (Parker Posey), and Jo's overeducated boyfriend, Carl (Liev Schreiber), pile into the family woody and head eastbound on the L.I.E. Part detectives, part support group, their mission improbable is to get to the bottom of this sudden domestic intrigue.

As the unlikely gaggle (otherwise known as a typical suburban family) hunts an elusive Louis down Manhattan canyons, they suffer through such indignities as a broken car heater, generic familial bickering, and the literary pretensions of novelist-construction worker Carl. All the while their lives smash into those of other squabblers and strivers . . . until they finally confront Louis, who by this time they've caught in a web of lies.

A kind of "After Hours" meets "All in the Family," this zany misadventure builds into a powerful and probing drama and ultimate testament to the thickness of blood versus water. While lampooning the publishing world and downtown scene (a venue Parker Posey, star of "Party Girl," inhabits so cozily on celluloid), this directorial debut also manages an uncomfortably familiar emotional intensity.

By casting the spouse in the role of possibly untrustworthy foreigner temporarily given refuge within the folds of the primary family, it also affirms family values in a way never intended by Newt Gingrich. Like most families, this one unravels in order to be stitched again.