Inventing the Abbotts (1997)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Such a frustrating disappointment

Simply A Masterpiece

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

For a moderate-length movie this one seemed really long. The drama is drawn- out, profoundly annoying, and dull, even supposing it's an accurate depiction of the time. While Liv Tyler's character, Pam, is particularly unbearable, Doug is the typical liberal Hollywood wussy-man putz who gets fixated on one girl -- not unlike Forest Gump -- and refuses to move on, perhaps owing to something more interesting than his low self-esteem and total social ineptitude; perhaps because his feelings for Pam remind him of a purer, innocent, idyllic time before everything in life became so complicated; but to me that's a cop-out. That's hardly a real-world love story if you ask me. Obviously Doug's character is such that the possibility of finding another girl out there who would accept him for who he is not even considered. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed. But I have to give Joaquin Phoenix respect for playing the part to a tee. Not even Tom Hanks can play the town idiot as well as Joaquin. That said, the film gets points for good acting from Joaquin Phoenix and for a somewhat realistic plot, even though the Holts and Abbotts simply cannot help "running into" one another all across the states at colleges, airports, and elsewhere. Go figure: these star-crossed lovers simply cannot avoid one another when "society" forbids their coupling. The bottom line, though, is the film is so unbearable to watch for its "love story," which is so sterile and pathetic that I cannot give it more than 5/10. It gets that many points only because even for the lack of realism of certain plot points, I believe it gives an overall realistic depiction of the rigid 1950s yes-man mentality.

I had seen this movie a few years back but didn't retain much of it, except 'that' scene at about 17:44 with Jennifer Connelly. So I just watched it again on Netflix streaming movies. It is an even better movie than I remember it.Set in 1957 in the fictional town of Haley, Illinois, probably a suburb of Chicago, it is almost a 'romeo and juliet' story. Joaquin Phoenix is Doug Holt, the nice kid from the mediocre side of town, being raised by a single mom. He has an older brother, Billy Crudup as Jacey Holt. Jacey always seems angry, and often his anger is directed at the Abbott family. Will Patton is the father, Lloyd Abbott, from the successful side of town. He has three daughters and Jayce seems bent on taking each one of them to bed, which he accomplishes in a round about way.You see, Jacey grew up with several misconceptions about Lloyd Abbott. The first was that he took advantage of their mother and essentially stole a patent for a type of file cabinet, which resulted in his becoming wealthy. But in fact Doug eventually discovers that their dad had traded it away for a used car. The second was that Lloyd Abbott was responsible for their dad's death, when on a bet he drove on a frozen pond, and drowned when the ice broke. But the bet was their dad's idea, not Lloyd's.But all these misconceptions, plus probably others, drove Jacey's reckless behavior. For a while Doug tried to follow in big brother's footsteps until he realized better and became his own man. He always had a thing for the youngest Abbott sister, Liv Tyler as Pam Abbott, but embarrassed after letting Jacey seduce her she left town. Eventually Doug looked her up and, as the voice-over at the end says, a year later they were married and they had two daughters.Kathy Baker was good as the Holt mother, Helen. Jennifer Connelly was good as the middle sister Eleanor Abbott, who was sent off to a boarding school after her affair with Jayce was discovered.

This takes place in Illinois from 1957 to 1960. It's about two poor brothers--Doug (Joaquin Phoenix) and Jacey (Billy Crudup)--who are infatuated with three rich sisters--Alice (Joanna Going), Eleanor (Jennifer Connrlly) and Pamela (Liv Tyler) Abbott. It follows their relationships over the years.Why this film was made remains a mystery to me. It's very well-done with an attractive cast and beautiful settings--but there's nothing even remotely new here. The conflicts and story lines here have been done countless times before (just here they're updated with minor nudity and some very R rated language). Also, at almost two hours, it's far too long. I was basically pretty bored during the last hour and was just patiently waiting for things to reach their utterly predictable conclusion. Also the acting by Connelly and Crudup was pretty terrible. Connelly just giggles and acts vacant and Crudup seems unwilling to move one muscle in his face. He always has this blank expression on his face no matter what's happening in his scenes. The great acting by the rest of the cast (especially Phoenix and Kathy Baker) and the lush settings make this worth watching at least once. But seriously--you've seen this all before. Narrated by an unbilled Michael Keaton. I give it a 6.

The amazing brotherly resemblance between JOAQUIN PHOENIX and BILLY CRUDUP is a drawback to casual viewers of the film because they look so much alike, especially in the early scenes, that it's easy to lose track of the storyline when you can't tell which brother is on the screen at key moments.KATHY BAKER is the mother raising two sons in a small American town during the 1950s and she gives a genuinely real performance even though her role is underwritten with not enough character exposition to let us know her well enough. But that's not too much of a deficit since the story revolves almost completely around the relationship--the coming of age--of two brothers in conflict with each other over everything, including girls.As the younger, more sensitive and less worldly brother, JOAQUIN PHOENIX is amazingly well cast as he deals with each crisis involving a wealthy family, the Abbots, and their daughters, all of whom are victims of a lie concerning his mother's relationship with Mr. Abbot. BILLY CRUDUP is equally effective as his look alike brother who has his own way of settling scores until he decides he must leave the small town behind and make his own way in the world.The '50s era is well realized, although the coarseness of some of the dialog is not always appropriate for that era when cuss words weren't tossed around as liberally as they are today.Summing up: Slowly paced, but holds the interest because of the central relationships and the fact that you care about what happens to these people.