Matt Travis is dead before the opening credits of "Imaginary Heroes" even conclude.

		'Imaginary Heroes' Rating: R for substance abuse, sexual content, language and some violence. Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Emile Hirsch. Director: Dan Harris.

He was a champion swimmer who, it turns out, hated both the attention and the swimming. On the very day he should have been headed to the Olympic trials, his family gathers for his funeral. Matt shot himself in the head behind his locked suburban bedroom door.

Left behind were his parents, Sandy and Ben Travis (Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Daniels), his younger brother, Tim (Emile Hirsch), and his mostly absent sister, Penny (Michelle Williams), a college student.

"Imaginary Heroes," written and directed by Dan Harris and opening today at the Harris Theater, charts the family's attempt to climb out of the abyss after the suicide. It's painful to watch but is well-acted enough to carry you along to the end, which frankly can't come soon enough.

Ben, who considered Matt his favorite, turns into a zombie, while Sandy rediscovers marijuana. Poor lost Tim is pummeled by life, and Penny copes by keeping her distance. It's as if everyone in the boxing ring has gone to their separate corners to grieve, when they need to meet in the middle, talk, act like a family and get some obviously needed therapy.

But there are secrets, resentments and twists of fate that keep them apart for much of the movie. The final scenes answer most of the questions that have hung in the air, such as the reason for Sandy's bitter feud with a neighbor (Deidre O'Connell) or why the family was fractured by favoritism.

Harris, who co-wrote "X2: X-Men United," has an occasional way with dialogue, as when the mother tells Tim, "You won't understand how good for you I am until I'm dead." But he indulges a penchant for scenes that exist for sheer visual shock, such as a sucker punch from an old man or the full plate of food regularly placed at the dead son's spot at the dinner table.

The passage of time is noted with the seasons flashed on screen, as if we were watching a novel come to life. The film's saving grace is Hirsch ("The Girl Next Door," "The Emperor's Club") as 17-year-old Tim. Everything about him seems right, from his body language to his bottled-up pain, anger, confusion and guilt.

However, watching "Imaginary Heroes" is like visiting a squabbling family; you keep trying to slip on your coat, fumble for your keys and inch toward the door, and they won't let you go until they're good and ready.