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75
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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.
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75
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San Francisco Examiner Walter Addiego
The veteran Baker anchors the proceedings, and you would like to see more of her character.
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75
|
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Inventing the Abbotts has the cast and characters to be something special; the script just isn't ambitious enough.
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60
|
The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
Best watched as a showcase for radiant young talent.
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58
|
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.
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50
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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.
|
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50
|
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.
|
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40
|
Los Angeles Times
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.
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38
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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]
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30
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Washington Post Desson Thomson
Too long winded and dull.
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