Inventing the Abbotts

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Inventing the Abbotts has the cast and characters to be something special; the script just isn't ambitious enough.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The film belongs to Phoenix ("To Die For"), who is terrific. He has the gift, shared with his late brother, River, of conveying emotions without pushing them at you. The delicacy of his scenes with Tyler lets you enjoy the film for what it truly is: a heartbreaker.

San Francisco Examiner Walter Addiego

The veteran Baker anchors the proceedings, and you would like to see more of her character.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Apart from the script, it's the actors who make this a film worth seeing; all of them look and sometimes even act like real people rather than types or icons, and behind their interactions can be felt the depths of lived experience.

Variety Emanuel Levy

An emotionally powerful but extremely old-fashioned coming-of-age saga.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

All the actors caught me up so warmly that I stopped feeling guilty about liking this corny picture. [28 April 1997, p.30]

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Best watched as a showcase for radiant young talent.

Empire Angie Errigo

What lifts this at key moments is the outstanding Phoenix's simpatico performance and we can add to the credit side happy casting that for once has assembled actresses and actors who really do resemble each other and present plausible siblings.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The only real heat among the group comes from Jennifer Connelly, who, as the bad-girl middle daughter, raises the stakes any time she's on screen.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The drama is long on 1950s atmosphere and complicated feelings, short on emotional depth and real psychological insight.

Dallas Observer Michael Sragow

Drowns in vanilla carnality.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

An awkward script, a mannered style and the selection of hill-and-dale Petaluma as a stand-in for an Illinois small town all undermine the film.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

This thing can take pride of place in a long tradition of Hollywood howlers.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The picture is haunted by a story problem: It isn't about anything but itself. There's no sense of life going on in the corners of the frame.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

The members of its young cast (Jennifer Connelly, Joaquin Phoenix, Liv Tyler) have all shown promise elsewhere, but don't really get to do much but look attractive and troubled here. They may be stars, but as long as they keep treading water in bland stuff like this, the world may never know.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Told from younger brother Doug's point of view, Phoenix's voiceover spans the length of the film and winds up making the images that unfold practically redundant.

Los Angeles Times Jack Mathews

Inventing the Abbotts is pointless soap opera, anecdotal and superficial, mixing sibling rivalry, class conflict and tragic romantic entanglements in a style that mimics fictional life in the '50s more than it illuminates what went on.

TV Guide Ken Fox

A pastel-pretty and oh-so-dull coming of age tale.

USA Today Mike Clark

Inventing the Abbotts would be a lot more fun were it a trashy Troy Donahue-Diane McBain vehicle ground out by Warner Bros. in 1960, the year this hormonally motivated high school-college romance mercifully concludes. [4 April 1997, p. 4D]

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Too long winded and dull.

Time Richard Schickel

The goofy hysteria of something like "A Summer Place" was infinitely more entertaining and emotionally authentic than the distant smugness of this failed clone. [7 April 1997, p. 76]