Inventing the Abbotts is a 1997 American period 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. The film focuses on two brothers and their relationship with the wealthy Abbott sisters. The film was produced by Fox 2000 Pictures and Imagine Entertainment and released by 20th Century Fox on April 4, 1997.
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Plot summary
The lives of two families, the Holts and the Abbotts, intersect in the small Illinois town of Haley in the 1950s. Two brothers, J.C. and Doug Holt, are being raised by their single working mother. Their father Charlie was a reckless risk-taker who lost his life when J.C. was two years old and before Doug was born, after driving on a frozen lake over a bet made with Lloyd Abbott. Lloyd had just acquired Charlie's patent for a steel file-drawer in return for almost nothing, consequently becoming one of the town's wealthiest and most-admired citizens. Lloyd and his distant wife, Joan, are the parents of three beautiful daughters, Alice, Eleanor, and Pamela. The parties for the girls' birthdays and other milestones are among the most anticipated events in the town.
Thinking his father's death was Lloyd's fault, and that the money raised from the patent was unfairly stolen from his family, J.C. seeks revenge on Lloyd through the calculated seduction of the Abbott daughters. First he seduces Eleanor, the wildest of the three. As a consequence of their relationship, she is sent away to a mental hospital, and will end up never returning to Haley again. Meanwhile, Doug, who initially admires his brother's libertine lifestyle, starts harboring reciprocated feelings for the youngest Abbott, Pamela. The two awkwardly circle each other, but she protests his early, fumbling sexual advances.
