A Cry in the Dark

On a family camping trip, Lindy Chamberlain (Streep) sees a dingo emerge from the tent and finds her baby gone. A torchlight search ensues, and a bloody baby suit is discovered. Lindy and her husband Michael (Neill) go on TV, and seize the opportunity to plug their Seventh Day Adventist faith, which does not go down well. They don't seem to be grieving. Australia takes against this unnervingly self-contained victim of disaster. The press go for the jugular, the Australian public ridicule the dingo story, and the couple go on trial for murder. Schepisi's matter-of-fact direction and the rather undernourished screenplay don't mine much beyond the lousiness of the press and the unknowableness of the victims, but Streep (the best thing she has done in ages) carries it along.