Evelyn is a movie about Desmond Doyle (played by Pierce Brosnan,) a painter/decorator and father of three children, in 1950’s Ireland. The film varies from the book by Evelyn Doyle sufficiently to warrant a closer look at the actual lives of the Doyles. When the project came to the attention of Brosnan’s company Irish Dream Time, their Paul Pender II wrote the screenplay for Pierce Brosnan. Irish Dream Time produced The Nephew’ in 1998, a ‘sleeper’ of a lovely film, set in Ireland, with Brosnan in the lead. Pender’s screenplay definitely made this film another vehicle to showcase Brosnan’s Ireland once again.

Who were the Doyles of this ‘based on a true story’ film? Evelyn Doyle originally shopped the story of her father to BBC, where Brosnan heard of it. After which, her concerns about adaptation of her idea, by Irish Dream Time, to a film, caused her to turn out her book in a record ten weeks. She writes of her father as formidable, strict, quick tempered and liking a drink. He is thirty-one at the time of the legal battle. Also, Doyle and his father, not the barristers (as in the movie,) did the library research, discovering a possible way to retrieve his children from an unrelenting social system with little separation of church and state. Doyle, initially without legal counsel, gave his children up to the nuns, believing he could get them back when he was able. He was unprepared for the nuns to refuse him his children when he came calling for them. Fiercely opposed to their unyielding answer that his children were then seen to belong to the system until they were sixteen, he began a fourteen-month legal battle to overthrow the unconstitutional incarceration of his children by the system.

Doyle advocated a children’s right to choose the parent with whom they would rather be. He sought compatibility of the educational system with the Irish Constitution. Although Evelyn, at the age of eight, did not make a convincing speech in court about her desire to live with her new stepmother, Doyle still won the legal precedent, which impacted the system heavily, subsequently allowing his children and hundreds of young people to leave these church run industrial schools (read something akin to sweat shops) where they were conscripted to do laundry when not in class. On his deathbed, Doyle thought his life had been ‘a waste. Evelyn wanted his triumph over the system to be recorded. She did just that—both in print and on film.

Evelyn Doyle seems, for the most part, to be pleased with the film. In interviews, she and her brothers share their amazement at how close Brosnan’s character was to the mannerisms, facial expressions and tone of voice of their father—from only two phone conversations with Evelyn. His character and young Evelyn’s have depth. Due to the restraints of a two-hour time frame, the other characters are not developed as well. Julianna Margulies is underutilized as an Irish love interest. Irish Dream Time apparently didn’t want to pursue the actuality—that Desmond went to England for eight months and returned with an Englishwoman who was to become the children’s stepmother. Niall Beagan is endearing as the granddad. The young Irishwoman, Sophie Vavasseur, reminiscent of Shirley Temple, delivers her speeches and lines with a charming hesitation. Vavasseur and Brosnan achieved a wonderful father-daughter chemistry, which works quite nicely. MGM and United Artists distribute this Irish Dream Time, Cinerenta, First Look, Meespierson Film collaboration.

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