Evelyn

Rating:
Summary: Heartstrings & Clover
Review: This little jewel of a film is as potent as it has been unheralded. Australian Director Bruce Beresford who was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for "Tender Mercies" and has also done "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Double Jeopardy" does a marvelous job with the small independent feature. From the informative featurette on the DVD, he was instrumental in pruning screenwriter Paul Pender's screenplay and insisting on Pierce Brosnan's final courtroom speech.

This film is one that touches your heartstrings. The theme of love a parent has for their children is universal and allows this to be a movie that is important to us. With the Irish setting and plot that centers on the Irish judicial system, it seems like heartstrings & clover.

Pierce Brosnan was the moving force behind putting the picture together; and it is an admirable project. Brosnan turns in one of his best performances as the father who fights to get his children back. His voice cracks with emotion as he tells how much he loves them and that he wants to bring them up surrounded by love. It's not corny or overly sentimental; it's what makes the world go round!

Sophie Vavasseur is wonderful as the title character Evelyn. She has the pureness and faith of a child's heart and nails the sweetness of the character. The scene where she watches her mother run off with another man is heartbreaking as the audience understands more than the child who watches with puzzlement. If there were more to wish for, additional time for the two boys to show their father's connection to them would have focused on the whole family.

ER's Julianna Margulies does a nice job as the supportive Bernadette who tends bar. She refers Brosnan's Desmond Doyle character to her brother lawyer Michael Beattie played by Stephen Rea. Rea's subdued solicitor character leads Doyle to yet another lawyer, barrister Nick Barron played by Aidan Quinn. They get Thomas Connolly on the team played by Alan Bates, recently from "Gosford Park" and "The Mothman Prophecy." Bates passed away from cancer in December 2003, but is full of feisty spirit as he shepherds the case to Irish Supreme Court. As Charlotte Doyle, Mairead Devlin gives a brief but memorable performance as the restless wife.

"Evelyn" was a small film, but it works wonderfully. It tugs at the heartstrings and is a great family film to help us recall how much our families mean in our lives. The shooting on the film started shortly after 9/11 and seems to draw inspiration from the time in which it was shot. The fact that this is based on a true story makes it poignant. This is essential viewing! Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Heartstrings & Clover
Review: This little jewel of a film is as potent as it has been unheralded. Australian Director Bruce Beresford who was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for "Tender Mercies" and has also done "Driving Miss Daisy" and "Double Jeopardy" does a marvelous job with the small independent feature. From the informative featurette on the DVD, he was instrumental in pruning screenwriter Paul Pender's screenplay and insisting on Pierce Brosnan's final courtroom speech.

This film is one that touches your heartstrings. The theme of love a parent has for their children is universal and allows this to be a movie that is important to us. With the Irish setting and plot that centers on the Irish judicial system, it seems like heartstrings & clover.

Pierce Brosnan was the moving force behind putting the picture together; and it is an admirable project. Brosnan turns in one of his best performances as the father who fights to get his children back. His voice cracks with emotion as he tells how much he loves them and that he wants to bring them up surrounded by love. It's not corny or overly sentimental; it's what makes the world go round!

Sophie Vavasseur is wonderful as the title character Evelyn. She has the pureness and faith of a child's heart and nails the sweetness of the character. The scene where she watches her mother run off with another man is heartbreaking as the audience understands more than the child who watches with puzzlement. If there were more to wish for, additional time for the two boys to show their father's connection to them would have focused on the whole family.

ER's Julianna Margulies does a nice job as the supportive Bernadette who tends bar. She refers Brosnan's Desmond Doyle character to her brother lawyer Michael Beattie played by Stephen Rea. Rea's subdued solicitor character leads Doyle to yet another lawyer, barrister Nick Barron played by Aidan Quinn. They get Thomas Connolly on the team played by Alan Bates, recently from "Gosford Park" and "The Mothman Prophecy." Bates passed away from cancer in December 2003, but is full of feisty spirit as he shepherds the case to Irish Supreme Court. As Charlotte Doyle, Mairead Devlin gives a brief but memorable performance as the restless wife.

"Evelyn" was a small film, but it works wonderfully. It tugs at the heartstrings and is a great family film to help us recall how much our families mean in our lives. The shooting on the film started shortly after 9/11 and seems to draw inspiration from the time in which it was shot. The fact that this is based on a true story makes it poignant. This is essential viewing! Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Quite a charmer ¿ well done and captivating
Review: This wonderful movie has not got the publicity it deserves. This is a move made in the style of the classics. Plot, character development, value conflicts, struggle, climax, and resolution - I thought these were part of a lost art.

Brosnan is an ordinary guy that, by continually fighting in the face of challenge, develops the character that makes him worthy of our admiration. When was the last time a movie did that? Brosnan is human and heroic in a simple manner. And his daughter matches his spirit. His character rallies the people to his cause; the audience my theater was similarly won over.

I don't know what goes into great acting or directing - but I know the result. The same situation could have been plodding and painful in the hands of some pedantic journalistic type of director.

Rating:
Summary: Review of Evelyn
Review: When I am writing this, the movie still hasn't come out on DVD, but I did see it in the theater and highly recomend it. Please note: Amazon.com's listing of it as "R" is wrong, the movie is rated PG for "Some Language and Thematic Elements". Brosnan is a awsome actor, and though we are used to him as 007, he fits the role of Desmond Doyle perfectly. The best part of the movie is Evelyn herself, played by wonderful Sophie Vavasseur. Vavasseur, who, in my humble oppinion, should have been top-billed with Brosnan, but unfortunately the industry doesn't do that. Oh well. The remainder of the cast is played by equally big names as Alan Bates, John Lynch, Julianna Margulies and Stephen Rea. The story is set in Co. Dublin, Ireland in the 1950's. I won't spoil the story too much, you'll just have to take my word its a great film. The plot is so well constructed that if I were to start explaining it, I might give away more than I want. Its a good, clean movie, which is rare nowadays. Desmond and Bernadett don't even end up in bed with each other! Amazing, I know! Even though all ends well for the Doyles, there is still a dark undercurrent of politics to the end, which seems unsettling, but is an awsome dramatic effect. So buy the DVD and support CineEvelyn, the Indy group that made this film (though I'm sure MGM/UA will get a fair cut).

Rating:
Summary: A Father's Love
Review: With so many films saturating the market with drugs, sex, and violence, is is infinitely refreshing to come across a movie about determination, strength, and a father's love for his children - all ingredients in the heartwarming tale "Evelyn".

Pierce Brosnan stars (and SHOULD have earned an Academy Award for his role) as Desmond Doyle, an unpolished, unemployed painter and decorator in 1953 Dublin. After his wife walks out on the family on St. Stephen's Day, Desmond struggles to provide for himself and three young children - only to lose custody of them to the state a few weeks later. Heartbroken by the loss of his kids, Desmond sinks into despair - and the bottle - until a young barmaid, Bernadette Beattie (Julianna Margulies) convinces him to hire a lawyer to win his children back and become a better man in the process.

Desmond enlists the help of Bernadette's brother, cynical solicitor Michael Beattie (Stephen Rea), who manages to add a dash of realism to Desmond's dreams for a happy ending. Doyle's heartfelt plea for assistance allows Michael's friend, American lawyer Nick Barron (Aidan Quinn), to take on the case as well. Barron, unlike Beattie, knows what Desmond is going through; he recently lost custody of his own children in a divorce case. The two convince retired law professor and rugby player Tom Connolly (Alan Bates), a charasmatic yet eccentric rogue, to assist their case against the Irish courts. Together, the group dares to do what no one has done before - successfully challenge a law against the Irish Constitution.

While the film is inevitably about the storyline, which, at times, can be intense, it is the characters who make the movie as special as it is. Bates and Quinn are cheerful and comedic in their roles, and Rea and Margulies add realism to Brosnan's dreaming. However, it is young Sophie Vavasseur, who plays Desmond's daughter Evelyn, who steals the show. Her striking maturity mixed with childhood innocence, are what make the movie incredibly heartwarming.

I waited six months for the chance to see this movie, but it was absolutely incredible. The opportunity to see such an uplifting film doesn't come every day, but this one is worth seeing over and over again.