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All-Reviews.com Movie/Video Review
Evelyn
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 out of 4
Review by Susan Granger
3½ stars out of 4
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In this unabashedly sentimental family drama, Pierce Brosnan delivers
a bravura performance as a real-life father who - back in 1953 - challenged the
constitutionality of the Irish Family Act in a courageous fight to regain
custody of his children. Brosnan plays Desmond Doyle, an unemployed Dublin
housepainter, who's abandoned by his feckless wife on the day after Christmas
and left with the responsibility of caring for three young children: two boys
and a precocious daughter named Evelyn. Drinking far too much at the pub, he's
haplessly struggling when his mother-in-law reports him to the authorities.
Then, when the callous courts take his children away and put them in strict,
church-run orphanages, Doyle is devastated. Vowing to reunite his family, he
enlists the help of a sympathetic barkeep (Julianne Margulies), who gathers a
legal team: her solicitor brother (Stephen Rea), Irish-American lawyer friend
(Aidan Quinn) and his still-raffish law school mentor (Alan Bates). Together,
they're determined to seek justice, even if it means going to all the way to the
Irish Supreme Court. Written as a David-and-Goliath story by Paul Pender, it's
told with economy, eloquence and elegance. Director Bruce Beresford, who excels
at compelling court scenes ("Breaker Morant"), stages the complex legal battle
as well as plumbing the heart-wrenching depths of the emotional encounters.
Inspired to reach far beyond his famous James Bond character, Brosnan remains
cheeky - with a twinkle in his eye - yet solidly portraying the rough-edged,
devoted father, and luminous nine year-old Sophie Bavasseur is enchanting in the
title role. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Evelyn" is an optimistic,
uplifting 8, demonstrating not only fathers' rights but the triumph of the human
spirit.
Copyright © 2002 Susan Granger
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