Evelyn (2002)

While I must admit this is a chick-flick, it is a very good one. A heartwarming story, very well acted by an excellent cast. At times it was a little difficult to understand some of the thick accents, but it's better than hearing someone like Kevin Costner speak with an American accent in Robin Hood. The child actors were very convincing, although with the habits they were wearing it was hard to tell the good nuns from the bad nuns. The screenplay had just enough humor to keep the movie from getting too sappy, which is critical if you want guys to keep from walking out. Much better material for Pierce Brosnan than the James Bond scripts.

Fmovies: Those of us who endured the gruelling "Angela's Ashes" a few years back probably came away with the impression that living in 1950s Ireland was like living in hell, or maybe slightly worse. We were treated to the dysfunctional family to end all: the father was a mean drunk, the mother was nuts, the kids were brats, their relatives were all vicious (or nuts), they were poorer than dirt, they lived under the heel of a Stalinist Catholic Church, and it NEVER STOPPED RAINING. I left the cinema wondering not why so many Irish had left their country, but why any had stayed.

Now along comes "Evelyn" which also is about poor people in 1950s Ireland, but this seems to be the Hallmark greeting card version. The father (played by Pierce Brosnan using, I imagine, his native accent) does drink, but he's not at all mean about it, his kids are angelic and the mother who abandons them only gets about five minutes of screen time and is soon forgotten. There are relatives who may not like one another but are united in their love for the kids (an enjoyable scene has Evelyn, the daughter, running back and forth conveying messages between two of them). There are a lot of well-meaning friends and acquaintances. They live in a nice home and don't seem to be starving or barefoot. It almost seems no big deal when the mother leaves; if anything, one supposes what little money they have will go further, with one fewer mouth to feed (there's an obligatory scene with Brosnan versus a boiling pot because, of course, all men are morons in the kitchen).

So it seems a little odd when government minions step in and announce that nice Mr. Doyle whose wife left him can't keep his kids any more. Now I know this is based on a true story and I know from other sources there was indeed a vast orphanage gulag (complete with slave labor) in Ireland, partly so that church and state could pretend it's possible to have a functioning country without divorce or abortion (and there was always nearby England). Some of that background would have been fascinating in "Evelyn," but maybe too depressing. So we just have to accept that here's this quaint country with this goofy law arbitrarily taking people's kids away. Doyle readily accedes to the removal, then abruptly wants them back. His efforts make up the remainder of the movie.

The problem here is what psychologists call "cognitive dissonance": on the one hand we're constantly reminded that the struggle of Doyle and his supporters against the church/state hierarchy is "hopeless," on the other hand, there's never really a sensation of hopelessness or desperation. There's a kind of amiable smoothness to the events, and frequent humorous moments. This may be partly due to the guiding hand of director Bruce Beresford who has never met a dramatic situation that he couldn't make cozy, whether it was the Boer War in "Breaker Morant," Southern racial tensions in "Driving Miss Daisy," capital punishment in "Last Dance" or Japanese POW camps in "Paradise Road," the latter also with J. Margulies from "ER." The orphanages in which the kids live don't even seem that unpleasant aside from one fascistic nun whose misdeeds get exposed anyway. The real horror of the Irish orphanage gulag was that it was swept under the rug for decades. This movie functions under a "sunshine law," literally; I don't want to "spoil" the big climactic scen

EVELYN (2002) *** Pierce Brosnan, Stephen Rea, Julianna Margulies, Aidan Quinn, Alan Bates, John Lynch, Sophie Vavasseur, Niall Beagan, Hugh McDonagh, Mairead Devlin, Frank Kelly. Heart-tugging melodrama based on a true story about a working class Irishman named Desmond Doyle circa 1950s attempted to regain full custody of his three beloved children (including the cute-as-pie Vavasseur as the titular daughter) after their mother abandons them making them wards of the state with stints in a Catholic institution. Brosnan acts up a storm with brio and has able support from Rea, Bates and Quinn as his legal brothers in arms and Margulies as the local barmaid/love interest. Warm-hearted and predictable but none-the-less crowd pleasing. (Dir: Bruce Beresford)

Evelyn fmovies. This is the true story of a father who battled some unfair Irish child custody laws about 50 years ago. He puts his kids in an orphanage, and then cannot get them back. He suffers from a prejudice that only mothers can raise kids.

I liked this movie because I identified with the father. To my surprise, my kids love this movie also. They've watched it about 10 times. This is partly because they've been the victims of a court-ordered custody change. But also, my daughters find the Evelyn Doyle character inspiring. She is calm and courageous and sensible in the face of a wrong system.

I have to admit, I was skeptical and anxious to see Pierce Brosnan in a serious dramatic role. His characters are usually very debonair and have an air of superiority about them that makes him seem to be better than the rest of us. I was pleasantly surprised seeing his true to life performance as Desmond Doyle an unemployed father of two boys and a girl named Evelyn. Evelyn is the eldest of the three children and has a special bond with her father which is the basis of the whole movie. Pierce Brosnan plays his character with a delicacy and dedication in which you the viewer completely forget him as Pierce Brosnan and start to really believe that this is a documentary type movie and not a Hollywood production. As Pierce Brosnan is Irish by birth it is not surprising how well he can pull off a moderate Irish accent but it is still a bit shocking considering how English he usually seems when he is seen on-screen. Stephen Rea, Alan Bates, Aidan Quinn and Juliana Margulies round out the rest of the adult cast and all put in performances that are worthy of their talents. Juliana Margulies being an American born actress is able to portray an Irish woman with accent very convincingly. This movie is without a doubt one of the better films of 2002, it is unfortunate that it was not widely known as a potential Oscar favorite.

Possibly you're a cynic and think the blarney is laid on too abundantly in this movie. Or you might be calling it "O'Kramer vs. O'Kramer" and this isn't too sappy and predictable to be taken seriously. Well, guess what, it is, and I loved every minute.

Pierce Brosnan, who I used to consider a cardboard cut-out of an actor, plays Desmond Doyle. He's fantastic as a father whose daughter and two sons are removed from their home by the government after their Mother ( in this case, the term can be used in the biological sense only) abandons the family. This being Ireland in the 1950s, there was a law that stated the government can intervene when one parent is found to be insufficient. Desmond has to quit drinking, deal with the death of his father, find a lawyer and rarely see his kids.

Its all okay at the end, and I have to mention that I hope the children's Mother and a certain Sister Bridget have the thankless job of eating ---- in hell for all eternity.

Worth mentioning from the cast is Alan Bates, a hard-drinking consultant to Doyle's case, and his wishes to hear (or not hear) a 'however' from the judges were hilarious.

I had a small problem with the fact that the Mother was not on trial, literally, because it was her abandonment of her family that led to them being separated.

Anyway, its a terrific movie. 8/10.