BART FREUNDLICH

VANITIES

AGE AND OCCUPATION: 32, writer and director. PROVENANCE: New York DYSFUNCTION JUNCTION: Freundlich's feature-film directorial debut, 1997's The Myth of Fingerprints, was a darkly comic story about one family's Thanksgiving weekend from hell starring Julianne Moore and Noah Wyle. LEADING LADY: Freundlich and Moore got togethe in real life and are currently anticipating the arrival of baby number two, along with Freundlich's second film, World Traveler, which opens this month and stars Moore and Billy Crudup. "The film is about a guy who is having this midlife crisis and basically tries to destroy himself and everyone around him because he's so unhappy. The biggest challenge is how are you going to get an audience to agree to go along on a journey with a guy who does something so despicable from the beginning." ALL IN THE FAMILY: "I just finished doing an adaptation of a book that Julianne's brother [author Peter Moore Smith] wrote called Raveling. It's a thriller that he and I adapted together. I'm going to direct and Julie's gonna be in it. She's also executive-producing." ART NOT QUITE IMITATING LIFE:"World Traveler and The Myth of Fingerprints are autobiographical in their existential conflicts, but the characters' actions aren't. Evr ry character I write is some expression of who I am and what I'm going through"

KRISTA SMITH