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A Cry in the Dark | 
 enlarge | Director: Fred Schepisi
Actors: Meryl Streep, Sam Neill, Dale Reeves (ii), David Hoflin, Jason Reason
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $2.25
You Save: $7.73 (77%)
New (60) Used (37) Collectible (1) from $1.46
Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 23373
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
DVD Layers: 2
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 121 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 6 x 0.6
MPN: D11868D
ISBN: 0790742772
UPC: 085391186823
EAN: 9780790708201
ASIN: B00002E22E
Theatrical Release Date: November 11, 1988
Release Date: December 21, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Meryl Streep won the New York Film Critics and Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards as Australia's Lindy Chamberlain accused of killing her infant daughter. "Hair-raising" (Newsweek) Year: 1988 Director: Fred Schepisi Starring: Meryl Streep Sam Neill Bruce MylesRunning Time: 122 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: PG-13 UPC: 085391186823
Amazon.com essential video
Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Elaine on Seinfeld once offered a non sequitur at a party just to relieve her own boredom: "The dingo ate your baby," she blurted in a bad Australian accent. It was a reference to this harrowing film by director Fred Schepisi, based on a true story. Meryl Streep and Sam Neill play a married couple on a camping trip whose baby disappears. Streep maintains that the baby was carried off by a dingo--a wild dog--but she winds up as the victim of a hard-hearted prosecutor and the target of a nationwide hate campaign, in part because she was a religious fundamentalist who seemed unsympathetic and, thus, became an easy target for the tabloid press. Streep and Neill are both outstanding in this fierce, realistic drama about the ways faith can bolster even in the face of outrageous persecution. --Marshall Fine
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Media frenzy, Aussie-style September 20, 2008
Bradley F. Smith (Miami Beach, FL)
I missed this true news story, but the movie recreates the group witch hunt that chased this Aussie couple to the penitentiary for a crime they never committed. Rumors, innuendo, boredom and group think were some of the factors involved. The film does a good job with it all, and the Aussie mood and landscapes are captured well. Streep is great, and Sam Neill is ok as the religious father caught up in the '80s craziness.
 Sadly, this is a true story... August 5, 2008
Andrew Ellington (Mulholland Drive)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I state the obvious in my title for a reason; for it is films like this that open your eyes to a very ugly side of life and humanity and kind of make you cringe inside at the very thought of belonging to the same species as some of these people. I know that that may sound harsh, but I dare you to watch this harrowing film and not find yourself thinking the same way. I couldn't help but close my eyes in agony during sections of this film, my wife gasping as we took in everything that this poor family had to suffer and endure; to no fault of their own besides maybe a poor decision that should have never been held over their heads.
`Evil Angels' (or `A Cry in the Dark' here in the states) tells the heartbreaking true story of the Chamberlain family who lost their young daughter while camping in the Australian outback. In the middle of the night a dingo snuck into the tent in which their 10-week old daughter Azaria was sleeping and ran off with her. A search was started yet her body was never found, and when the search was ended the witch-hunt began as the community and the media launched an all out attack on the family, especially the mother Lindy, trying to pin her down for the murder of her child.
You think that the worst thing that can happen to a parent is to lose a child; but that pain seems minimal when you find yourself accused of taking their life.
`Evil Angels' recounts the court proceedings that followed the disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain as her family is tormented and persecuted and mercilessly attacked by everyone around them. It is true that we live in a world where young children are killed and or abused daily, and many times by a parent, but we also live in a world where you are supposed to remain innocent until proven guilty, and no guilt was every proven against Lindy or Michael Chamberlain, which makes their treatment all the more devastating.
Sam Neill and Meryl Streep are superb as the crushed souls known as Michael and Lindy Chamberlain. They each dominate their characters, truly sinking into the thoughts and actions and wreckage that comes from this unforeseen situation. Neill embodies Michael with such sympathy and pain; his eyes bleeding with this uncomfortable sadness that scratches at his heart. As the court proceedings carry on and his relationship with Lindy becomes strained you can really see that he is trying to understand what is happening to him, but his mind can't grasp it; or maybe it doesn't want to. Meryl Streep is a revelation as Lindy. Lindy deals with her situation in stark contrast to her husband, forcing herself to find humor in her treatment to deaden the pain; but when she takes the stand and her countenance falls and she starts to crumble you begin to understand that she is not as cold as she appears.
You realize just how badly she has been damaged by the actions of everyone around her.
`Evil Angels' is a very hard film to stomach. It reminds me much of `The Crucible' in that both films (true life accounts mind you) expose the cruelty and inhumane ways of humans in desperate situations. Through both films I felt this heat within my veins that boiled into full-fledged anger and frustration in people. Maybe it's because I am a parent, but even if I were not I still feel as if this film would have wounded me so-to-speak. The script, actors, direction and mere tone of the film only help to elevate the inevitable devastation, to such a degree that the ending solace seems more token and less gratifying.
This film is superb.
A Cry in the Dark or Evil Angels June 4, 2008
C Wahlman (Merrillville, IN)
This has to be one of the most heart wrenching films I have ever seen.
This is the opposite of those movies that make you feel good about humanity and the world we live in ... This incredible true story makes you wonder how we call this civilization or justice.
Meryl Streep is tremendous as Mrs. Chamberlain, wife to a pastor husband, who experiences tragedy early on in the film. But the film focuses more on the tragedy that later befalls their lives as compassion and humanity are trampled by ignorance, rumor, hatred, and stubbornness.
Their story is amazing. It is sad and it makes you cry. And it will haunt you for some time. I believe there are few things scarier than being innocent and yet being unable to prove it because others believe in your guilt so diligently and blindly. Like Hitchcock's The Wrong Man, Cry in the Dark will leave its stain upon you, but will also give you hope in the end.
Highly recommend it is seen, but buy it with caution (some moments are so terribly painful you may not ever want to see them again).
A Cry in the Dark January 7, 2008
kittycatlady (Everett, WA)
A very fine acting performance by the main characters -- hard to watch knowing how injustice and prejudice colored the "investigation" -- but well worth the time. Will watch this one more than once.
A Cry in the Dark July 6, 2007
John Farr
Based on the shocking true story of a Seventh Day Adventist and his wife's personal and legal ordeal, Schepisi's poignant, gut-wrenching drama builds on the astonishing performance of Streep, barely recognizable as the timid, aggrieved victim of near-daily assaults in the press. Schepisi builds suspense in the tense courtroom scenes, which are intercut with flashbacks to the camping trip, and never recoils from the lurid aspects of the Lindy witch hunt. With its sympathy for a minority faith and contempt for tabloid excess, "Dark" feels more relevant than ever.
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