Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Boobirt Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

lasttimeisaw Best remembered by cinephiles as the film won Meryl Streep a Cannes BEST ACTRESS trophy and is among one of her 19 Oscar-nominated performances, A CRY IN THE DARK is a faithful adaptation of a sensational true story in Australia, about Lindy Chamberlain (Streep), a mother of three, and her parson husband Michael (Neill), the former is accused of murdering her newborn baby daughter during a camping trip in Ayers Rock in 1980, while she claims the baby is snatched by a dingo, and the latter is charged as an accessory. Now this case is already cleared as their convictions have been overturned in 1988 when new key evidence emerges.Before watching the movie, I have no idea how the story will wind up, all I know is that it is a thorny case of whether a mother murders her own child or not, so I conjecture it would straddle the key issue of the mother's innocence, but director Fred Schepisi (SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION 1993, 6/10) gives a firm hand in exerting Lindy's innocence, and vigilantly indicts the media's hullabaloo and hyper coverage, the spuriousness lies in the forensic system and the public's collective impressionability maliciously based on mislead first impression and personal prejudice. The Chamberlains are Seventh-Day Adventists, the tragedy and its segueing emotional toll also affect their beliefs, not to mention the vicious allegations of their cultish sacrifice, especially for Michael, who implores God for a reason to take away their daughter, cries out that hell can't be worse than this when they are on trial for a egregious but fictitious crime, his unraveling is perceptibly characterised by a blond Sam Neill. Running parallel to Michael's deterioration, Meryl's Lindy is the backbone of the whole myth, she is not a grieving mother who is all teary-eyed and rueful of her ephemeral inattention, she is tougher than her husband, not intend to indulge in grievance as life must go on, so in front of the camera, she seems aloof, withheld, a shade indignant, which generates a negative impression among the spectators, when malign rumours run amok, she tries to right the falsehood with more media involvement which is sardonically a wishful thinking. I'm no expert of accent, but it is swell to watch Meryl articulate a New Zealand accent (Lindy is New Zealand born in real life) without any feigned effort betrayed. Here Meryl shines magnificently all through to be unfathomable and detached, even during the most pulverising point, she is resolutely staunch, and her scenes in the courtroom are paradigm of balancing heart-rending outburst with constrained implosion, it is OK to being wronged, it is not the end, since she doesn't kill her baby, there is no guilty conscience exuded as all the onlookers are eagerly expecting in front of their televisions. Aesthetically the film is more in line with a solid TV movie sending many significant social messages, but there are way too many gratuitous reaction shots of bystanders thrust every now and then, as they can hardly have any saying versus the final verdict, it serves only as a repeated reminder of how ignorant is the public and how easily they can be influenced by a manufactured national hoopla. It seems that Schepisi pushes fairly too hard this time, otherwise, the film remains comparatively relatable and if you adore Meryl Streep, you should not let it slip through your fingers.

Rich Wright Yes folks, this is it... the origin of that popular quote " A DINGO ATE MY BABY!!" ( Though, you never actually hear those words said in the film) It all derives from a true story about how a religious, devoted mother off on a little trip deep in the Aussie Outback with her husband and two other kids has her baby abducted and ultimately devoured by a particularly strong dingo. Unfortunately, just when the couple are coming to terms with their loss, foul play is suspected and they're hauled into court accused of murder, pursued by a dogged (geddit?) press and disbelieved by a suspicious public. Can their relationship take the strain, and will they stay out of jail? Of course, if you followed the coverage at the time, you'd already know the answer to that, but try not to spoil it for those who didn't...Films based on actual events don't come any better than this, as we find ourselves immersed in this living nightmare for the married pair, where everyone has an opinion on what happened, the media is out to get them and even the police seem untrustworthy. Painstaking research must have been done, as we hear every angle of the case covered in minute deal... It's like we're there, in the gallery, watching events transpire before our eyes. This might be all for nought if the acting wasn't up to scratch, but in Streep and Neill they have two true professionals who accurately portray every minute of heartbreak and frustration that their real-life counterparts must have faced. Streep especially is perfect; with a dead-on accent to boot; not surprisingly, she won yet ANOTHER Oscar nomination.There is still those who think Lindy is guilty, after four trials and plenty of evidence backing her story.Probably the same people who think Man never landed on the Moon, There were two shooters when JFK got assassinated and Global Warming is a myth. You know who you are. Weirdos... 8/10

James Hitchcock In August 1980 a nine-week-old baby girl named Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from a camp-site near Ayers Rock, Australia. The baby's mother Alice (generally known as Lindy) stated that her daughter had been taken by a wild dingo, and a subsequent inquest ruled that her account of events was true. That, however, was not the end of the matter. The police continued to investigate the disappearance, and eventually Lindy was charged with Azaria's murder; her husband Michael was charged with helping her dispose of the body. In October 1982 both were convicted and Lindy was sentenced to life imprisonment. (Michael was only given a suspended sentence). Several years later fresh evidence came to light which led to Lindy's release from prison; in 1988, shortly before this film was released, both the Chamberlains were acquitted by the Northern Territory Court of Appeals of all the charges against them.The "dingo baby case", as it became known, was one of the most controversial cases in Australian legal history. I remember an Australian friend coming to visit me in the early nineties, several years after Lindy and Michael Chamberlain had been exonerated, and as like me he was a keen film enthusiast I suggested that we should watch "Out of Africa" which was on television that evening. He refused point blank, stating that ever since the release of "A Cry in the Dark" he had made it a principle not to watch any film starring Meryl Streep because of what he described as her part in the "whitewashing of a notorious child-killer". My friend's attitude was by no means unusual in Australia. The case divided public opinion sharply in that country, with the majority probably believing that the Chamberlains were guilty. Gossip about them was widely repeated and quickly accepted as the truth. One thing that even the prosecution was unable to come up with was a plausible motive for the alleged crime. Those, however, who wanted to see the Chamberlains prosecuted in the court of public opinion were not so reticent. The couple were members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church- indeed, Michael was a pastor in that church- and rumour soon had it that Adventist religious doctrine demands the human sacrifice of young children in order to atone for the sins of the community. It was also widely, and incorrectly, reported in the media that the name Azaria means "sacrifice in the wilderness". Few of those who passed on these rumours had any real interest in Adventism, or how the doctrines of that church differ from those of mainstream Christianity; they merely saw the church as a bizarre and fanatical cult. This was the second film directed by Fred Schepisi in his native Australia. His first film, "The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith", also based on a real-life murder case, was part of the Australian "new wave" of the Seventies, but soon after making it Schepisi left for Hollywood. It is a dry, factual look at the facts of the case in the manner of a television docudrama; there is little to distinguish it from a "based-on-a-true-story" TV movie except for the presence of a major international star in the shape of Meryl Streep. (That and the fact that it is more factually accurate than most TV movies). Streep gets a chance to add another to her collection of accents, having earlier in the decade bagged British ("The French Lieutenant's Woman", "Plenty"), Polish ("Sophie's Choice") and Danish ("Out of Africa"). (Some people still think of her as an actress whose main skill is the ability to reproduce foreign accents, even though since the end of the eighties she has rarely played characters who are not American, her Italian-born housewife in "The Bridges of Madison County" and Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady" being the main exceptions). Here she gives an excellent performance as Lindy Chamberlain. What is so remarkable is that she is able to convey not only her Lindy's strength of personality and belief in her own innocence but also the character traits which persuaded many people that Lindy was in fact guilty. Meryl was nominated for a "Best Actress" Oscar but lost out to Jodie Foster in "The Accused". What alienated so many members of the public was Lindy's refusal to make a show of her grief and her calm demeanour and stoical acceptance of her daughter's death. This attitude was probably based on Lindy's firm religious beliefs, her conviction that Azaria's death was the will of God and that her daughter had gone to a better life in Heaven, but many people took it as cold-heartedness, even as proof of her guilt. Sam Neill is also good as Michael, a weaker character than his wife, who confronted with disaster loses faith both in God and in Lindy's innocence. "A Cry in the Dark" has many similarities to a number of British films from around this period dramatising real-life miscarriages of justice, such as "Dance with a Stranger" and "Let Him Have It". Films of this nature, quite apart from their entertainment value, also have a useful social function in that they remind us of how easily such miscarriages can occur. In Lindy Chamberlain's case the main factors appear to have been public hysteria, prejudice against a minority religion, the irresponsibility of parts of the media and flawed "expert" evidence. (Azaria's clothing was examined by a British forensic scientist with no knowledge of dingoes; a chemical sprayed on the Chamberlains' car as a sound deadener was mistaken for blood). That the Chamberlains were eventually exonerated was largely due to the chance discovery of new evidence; one wonders how many innocent people are still in jail waiting for such evidence to turn up. 7/10

ElMaruecan82 "A Cry in the Dark" in an Australian film from an Australian director, Fred Schepisi, chronicling the most famous trial of Australian history, the disappearance of a nine- week old baby, Azaria Chamberlain, in a campground near Ayers Rock (world's biggest rock) in 1980. The sad episode is infamous for the "The Dingo took my baby" line, the desperate cry of a mother, Lindy Chamberlain who saw the dingo coming off the tent where she put little Azaria a few minutes before, before it would be reduced to an 'opinion' debated by millions of Australians and questioned in trial. The Chamberlains would end up being convicted for the murder of their own baby after no evidence of a piece of clothing took by a dingo could be found.And whether it was the dingo who took little Azaria or Lindy, with the complicity of her husband Michael, who killed her child, matters less in the course of the film than the mechanisms that lead to one conviction to another. And Schepisi handles the case with a relative precision allowing us to understand to which extent, media, public opinion, the carrying of the case by the Law, the limitations of the police investigations, and last but no least, the reactions of the Chamberlain's family influenced perceptions and divided people. Recognized by the American Film Institute as the 9th in the list of the 10 greatest courtroom dramas, "A Cry in the Dark" provides a powerful social commentary about the fourth power and its undeniable interference with public opinion in the name of emotionalism and sensationalism.If I were bold, I would even make a comparison with the Dreyfus affair in France, although the political implications are totally different. But both cases strongly divided opinions, and the cultural background of the main protagonist played a significant role. Indeed, the Chamberlains are followers of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, technically, we don't learn much about it except in the way it strongly influences their lives and can easily make them look or sound like an obscurantist Church from common people's perspective. Michael is a pastor and constantly refers to Jesus and the end of the world, even when he's stuck by such a tragic event, even when he thanks people from the campground for their help. But it's Lindy who crystallizes the hatred and the suspicion. She looks cold and tough, has no difficulty to evoke the most gruesome details about the investigation, she's in a total contradiction about the way opinion would picture a mother who just lost her baby. At the end, what we have is a sensational case deviated by an excess of emotions and a woman who lacks this very emotion, and when the evidence doesn't speak for her, we feel that the fight is already lost. The power of "A Cry in the Dark" relies on the director's capacity to handle a very complex case, full of difficult notions, and encapsulate the public opinion through a series of little scenes showing people debating the case, even fighting over it. These little moments punctuating the legal plot line enable us not to understand the trial but why the Chamberlain Family lost it, as soon as the accusation stopped being pointed at the dingo but at them. It's even ironic that the dingo, which was one of the most representative animals of Australia, started to be seen as a sympathetic scapegoat, while Lindy Chamberlain stroke people from the courtroom as an icy and ruthless woman. And on that level, it's impossible to get further in the review without mentioning Meryl Streep. Calling it a virtuoso performance is almost a pleonasm because she carries with her own talent whatever made the film an instant classic. Not to diminish the merits of the director, writers, or even Sam Neil's supporting role as Michael, but the film feels like a minor production, it was even produced by the Golan-Globus pairing, more famous for 80's B- movies. It's like a TV Movie careful to report in a documentary-style the Chamberlain case without falling in a melodramatic trap. And it works for most of the part, because making the Chamberlains sympathetic would have reduced them to simple victims of circumstances while in reality, they contributed to their own misfortune. And Streep is able to metamorphose into a strong and tough women who refuses to play the game, to laugh or to weep just to please the jury, she doesn't use tears to implore people to believe them. They think she killed her baby, well, that's too bad. Meryl Streep, Oscar-nominated for the role of Lindy Chamberlain, redefines again the rule of acting through her extraordinary talent to multiply the accents, to be realer than the real, and to embody in her eyes all the emotion needed to elevate the film. In the course of the trial, while Michael looks absolutely devastated, his faith shattered by an intolerable bad luck streak, Lindy stands still, her eyes full of an expression of anger and dark confidence enough to chill the blood of anyone. First seen as a loving mother, she quickly becomes a suspect, then a witch, and then even the jury avoids seeing her. I wouldn't go as far as saying that the movie must be watched if only for Meryl Streep's performance, but as it doesn't have the stylistic ambitions of "Kramer vs. Kramer", if it wasn't for Meryl Streep, the movie would have definitely sunk into oblivion and not become this pop-culture phenomenon forever associated with Australia.The film was released in 1988 after the Chamberlains were finally acquitted when a baby clothing was found in a dingo lair. It's deliberately anticlimactic because the essential lies elsewhere; it's less about the Azaria Chamberlain case than the sad influence emotions can have on people, manipulating their opinion at the expense of truth. For that, "A Cry in the Dark" is an important film that hasn't lost its relevance.