Inventing the Abbotts

Inventing the Abbotts is a 1997 American dramatic/romance film directed by Pat O'Connor. The screenplay by Ken Hixon is based on a short story by Sue Miller. The original music score is composed by Michael Kamen.

Plot summary

The lives of two closely linked families dangerously intersect in a small Illinois town in the 1950s. Though they are from the wrong side of the tracks, the working class brothers Jacey and Doug Holt are in love with the wealthy and beautiful Abbott sisters. Shy and quiet Doug, who worships his womanizing brother, has eyes for the iconoclastic Pamela, but Jacey's affections are more calculating: he's interested in whichever Abbott sister is interested in him. At first, this is the wild sister Eleanor, but eventually Jacey sets his sights on the divorced oldest sister Alice. For Jacey, his conquest of the Abbotts is a form of economic revenge, as he believes that the head of the family, Lloyd, stole a patent that made him rich from the Holts' late father. When he's eventually revealed as an embittered cad, Jacey's mistreatment of the Abbott girls makes the genuine affection between Doug and Pamela impossible for either family to accept.

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