November 21, 2003
By Anthony Quinn
Star rating: **
Directed by Bruce Beresford, with Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Vavasseur, Stephen Rea and Aidan Quinn
I never thought Bruce Beresford could ever top his Japanese PoW movie Paradise Road for schmaltz, but his family melodrama, Evelyn, runs it very close.
Pierce Brosnan stars as Desmond Doyle, a feckless house- painter in 1950s Dublin who is left to cope with three young children when his wife walks out on him.
Irish law steps in and demands his daughter Evelyn be packed off to a convent and his two sons to a monastery, while Desmond takes to stewing his sorrows in booze and singing (not very well) in pubs for a few extra bob
.
In short, we are deep in the land of Oirish Twaddle, where the pipes trill plaintively, the fiddles weep in sympathy, and no opportunity is missed to milk pathos from the soulful looks of cute moppet Evelyn and her daft but loveable Da.
Once Desmond has enlisted the services of two top lawyers and a retired old souse, everything is set up for a climactic custody battle against the might of the Irish judiciary. - The Independent
  
 
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