Written by John Bryson, Robert Caswell, and Fred Schepisi
Directed by Fred Schepisi

“A dingo ate my baby” is a joke to many people, mostly those too young to remember the events in August of 1980 that led to those five words being renown the world over at the time.  For anyone who thinks it was nothing more than a joke, I recommend the film A Cry in the Dark.

It began in August 1980 at Mt Isa in the Australian state of Queensland

Lindy Chamberlain (portrayed by Meryl Streep) is a young mother of three who accompanies her family on a camping trip to Ayers Rock.  At night she walks away from the tent and leaves her infant daughter alone for a few minutes.  She returns to chase away a wild dog known as a dingo from the tent which runs off, presumably with the baby.

What followed was a media circus worthy of the OJ fiasco.  Media attention almost immediately centered on Lindy as the culprit.  The baby herself was never found, but some of the child’s clothing was found not far from the camping area stained with blood.  Evidence and testimony was twisted and dissected over the years.  Eyewitness testimony was second-guessed in the court of public opinion.  What happened was a modern-day public lynching worthy of The Crucible. 

The film illustrates what the family went through.  Meryl Streep as Lindy and Sam Neill as her husband Michael are excellent actors, although there seems to be a degree of stiltedness to their performances here.  I’m not quite sure why.  On the one hand, I thought perhaps Director Fred Schepisi has this interpretation of the characters due to their being devout Seventh-Day Adventists.  Michael is a Preacher at the beginning of the story, and it would almost seem that they were afraid to portray a strong family bond and had them more emotionally detached.  For whatever reason, it did make it a little hard to sympathize with them.  Streep was nominated for an Oscar, and really I have to wonder why.  She’s an excellent actress, which is why I really can’t say the fact that I didn’t invest in Lindy outside of reasons that I experienced something similar.

However, having seen firsthand what happened to a family when a co-worker of mine was murdered not long after this film aired, the details felt right.  The police don’t believe the story, and concoct their own theory which seems pretty outrageous.  Once the media grabs onto it, the family is torn apart.  Their religion is considered to have almost cult status.  They endure sensational rumors and outright lies by the media and those who are supposed to be seeking justice.  I clearly remember the story of blood splatter in the family’s car being leaked at the time, only to later find out it was only paint.  How do investigators make a mistake like this?  The answer is, that they don’t, but by then they were in so deep they couldn’t back away.

I recommend A Cry in the Dark more for learning about this incident if you’ve never heard the story behind “A dingo ate my baby”.  The story was a travesty of justice as this family was torn apart.  Watching the film all these years later, it just didn’t seem to be that good.