Taglines: When you want it all but can’t have it, there’s only one way to handle life… invent it.
Inventing the Abbotts movie storyline. The lives of two closely linked families dangerously intersect in a small Illinois town in the 1950s. Two brothers, Jacey and Doug Holt are growing up in Haley, Illinois, sons of a working single mother. Their father, a reckless risk-taker, has lost his life via a bet with Lloyd Abbott (Will Patton), his business partner. Abbott eventually becomes one of the town’s foremost, wealthiest and most-admired citizens. The lives of the Holts and the Abbotts are intertwined through various entanglements. Lloyd Abbott and his distant wife, Joan, are the parents of three beautiful daughters, Alice, Eleanor and Pamela.
Because of a misunderstanding of the circumstances surrounding his father’s death (a supposed bet with Abbott that took the elder Holt’s life), Jacey (Billy Crudup) seeks revenge on the Abbotts through the calculated seduction of the Abbott daughters. At first, Jacey cannot wait to escape the suffocating life in Haley, later in the film, however, he is pulled back as he idolizes the Abbott family, as well as obsesses about the oldest daughter, Alice (Joanna Going), thus seeking to jockey his way into the Abbott family.
At first, Doug (Joaquin Phoenix), the younger brother, admires and worships his brother’s libertine lifestyle. However, as he matures, he discovers that all that glitters is not gold. He eventually falls in love with the youngest, virginal Abbott, Pamela (Liv Tyler), who protests his early, fumbling sexual advances. She forces him to appreciate her for who she is, not what she may offer up to him. Meanwhile, Eleanor (Jennifer Connelly) is sent away to a mental hospital after she and Jacey are caught by Lloyd Abbott, who cannot keep them apart.
Inventing the Abbotts is a 1997 American coming-of-age film directed by Pat O’Connor and starring Liv Tyler, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly, and Joanna Going. The screenplay by Ken Hixon is based on a short story by Sue Miller. The original music score was composed by Michael Kamen.
Inventing the Abbotts (1997)
Directed by: Pat O’Connor
Starring: Liv Tyler, Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly, Joanna Going, Will Patton, Kathy Baker, Barbara Williams, Alessandro Nivola, Julie Benz, Amanda Sherman
Screenplay by: Ken Hixon
Production Design by: Gary Frutkoff
Cinematography by: Kenneth MacMillan
Film Editing by: Ray Lovejoy
Costume Design by: Aggie Guerard Rodgers
Set Decoration by: Kathryn Peters
Art Direction by: William V. Ryder
Music by: Michael Kamen
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality and language.
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: April 4, 1997
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