Evelyn
Every Time We Say Goodbye
The funniest scene in Evelyn is when our hero, Desmond Doyle, goes off in search of his lawyer, who has gone fishing. In order to get to the fishing hole, Doyle has to climb a barbed-wire fence, and is chased into the lake by two guard dogs. Nothing really funny about that, of course, except that Desmond is played by Pierce Brosnan, who in his other life as James Bond wouldn’t be caught dead in such a predicament.
But this is not a funny movie, naturally. It begins on Christmas Eve, in the small flat of the Doyle family, enjoying their last holiday together, Desmond explaining to his two boys that Santa couldn’t afford to bring any cars for their model train, and his wife eyeing the door warily. She takes off the next day, with her daughter Evelyn watching her go, clutching her poor, sad little cloth doll, watching her mother get in a car with a “fancy man” and leave her forever.
Sad, this, and wrenching, but it’s just the start of the movie. The Irish government moves in and separates the family, on the grounds that Doyle is unemployed and cannot support his children. The two boys - who we only see in montage scenes, mostly — are sent to a monastic school; Evelyn is thrown into the penguin house, a Catholic boarding school called St. Joseph’s. On the way there, Evelyn tells her grandfather that she’ll pray to St. Joseph that the family will be reunited, one of the many little moments in Evelyn that sneaks up on you, touching you by surprise.
The Catholic school is grim — although it’s not a patch on the school in Nicholas Nickleby and Evelyn must suffer the cruel ministrations of Sister Bridget, who beats her for interrupting the punishment of another student who could not say her catechism properly. Desmond, on hearing about this, breaks into the school to rescue his daughter, but is rebuffed. He finds a lawyer (Stephen Rea) through the recommendation of the local barmaid (Julianna Margulies, ER) and goes to court, but is rebuffed by the judges. It turns out that both parents have to sign the request to release the children from the custody of the Church, and as Evelyn’s mother is in Australia and can’t be reached to sign the release, Evelyn and her brothers cannot stay with their father.
As it turns out, though, there is a provision in the Irish constitution that upholds the rights of parents to enjoy the companionship of their children. Doyle’s legal team (an Americanized Aidan Quinn and a boozy Alan Bates) try a new tack, taking their case to the Supreme Court, claiming that the relevant provision of the Children’s Law is unconstitutional. Furthermore, the Supreme Court has, we’re told, never declared any sort of law unconstitutional before, meaning that Desmond Doyle’s case is sort of an Irish version of Marbury vs. Madison. As the film goes on, Desmond increasingly only sees his children in courtrooms, leading to a series of wrenching partings. “I’m tired of always saying goodbye to my children,” he says, and we see him start to work harder and stop drinking in order to be a better father for his kids.
Brosnan is, of course, terribly miscast as a lower-class painter, but he gets away with it by showing off his roguish charm and by not combing his hair that much. (But, as he’s a producer, and the movie might not have been made without him in the role, it’s easy enough to accept him.) Most of the other characters are flat and dull, bordering on the stereotypical. The big exception is Sophie Vavasseur as Evelyn, who exudes character, spunk, and a thorough sincerity. Vavasseur, in her first role, is the center of all the movie’s big sentimental payoff scenes, and does a splendid job.
Evelyn is a sad and sentimental picture, but it can’t be written off as a mere tearjerker. It has a substance behind it - the love of a father, the striving of good lawyers, the subtle workings of justice. It is a fine movie, tenderly directed by Bruce Beresford, and worthy of your time and attention.