Inventing the Abbotts is a 1997 romance film directed by Pat O'Connor, starring Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup, Liv Tyler, and Jennifer Connelly, and narrated by Michael Keaton. The screenplay by Ken Hixon is based on a short story by Sue Miller. The original music score is composed by Michael Kamen. The film is marketed with the tagline "When you want it all but can't have it, there's only one way to handle life invent it." 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 , 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.
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| Release date: | April 4, 1997 |
| Directed by: | Pat O'Connor |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 110 Minutes |
| Producer: | Brian Grazer, Ron Howard |
| Editor: | Ray Lovejoy, Ray Lovejoy |
| Music by: | Michael Kamen |
| Cinematography: | Kenneth MacMillan |
| Screenplay by: | Ken Hixon |
| Adapted from: | Inventing the Abbotts |