INVENTING THE ABBOTTS (35)

Directed by: Pat O'Connor

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Liv Tyler, Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly

The Pitch: A small town in the 50s : two teenage brothers from the wrong side of the tracks get involved with the daughters of the local big-shot.

Theo Sez: Some films just don't have a reason to exist - and this crushingly ordinary, once or twice pleasing drama is one of them. Some well-observed bits of teenage necking and fumbling (though everybody seems too old for their roles), but it's the kind of film where you just know someone'll burst in as soon as the illicit couple start smooching in the garage, where the past hangs heavy over the proceedings, cueing the timely revelation of assorted Dark Secrets (it's a bit like an episode from one of those multi-generational, based-on-a-bestseller TV mini-series), where a voice-over constantly butts in to reiterate what just happened ("For the first time I saw my mother cry" over a shot of...well, you know) ; everything is tired, hackneyed, mechanical. Not unlike the same director's CIRCLE OF FRIENDS - attractively cast, vaguely amusing to watch, instantly forgettable ; and someone should perhaps have pointed out that a glimpse of a Dodge commercial and a shot or two of characters drinking Coke-in-a-bottle do not a period evocation make.