Chapter fifty-three: A Cry in the Dark

Hi all! It's a three day weekend! I'd like to start by saying that I hope you had a good week. I know I certainly did. I received a Silver Key in a regional writing competition! (That's the equivalent of a silver medal.) I'm very happy (and relieved.) Believe me when I say that I had my fair share of recreating victorious scenes from Meryl's movies, but the best thing to do now in celebration is to keep writing.

That takes us to this week's movie. It's certainly a somber film to be writing about when considering my newly-cheery disposition from this week. But, I hope that with the three day weekend, I can do the story its deserved historical justice.

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A Cry in the Dark (also called Evil Angels in Australia and New Zealand) is about the true story of Lindy Chamberlain, who was (wrongfully) accused of murdering her baby daughter, Azaria, in 1980 while camping with her family one summer in Australia. I had read the plot points and synopsis prior to, but I didn't know it was a true story up until the opening credits of the movie. From that point, I had one tab of my computer open watching the film, and many others open doing research.

In the film, Austrians Lindy Chamberlin (Meryl) and her husband Michael (Sam Neil) are vacationing to the outbacks of Australia in August 1980 with their two young sons and baby daughter. (They're a newly-completed family.) The camping trip, which was supposed to mark the near end of summer, quickly turns disastrous when a dingo enters the family tent, leaving Lindy to scream the infamous quote,

"The dingo took my baby!"

In the dead of night, no one can make out a single shape. A search is conducted, but the results come up empty-handed, and Azaria is gone, presumably, heartbreakingly dead.

The remaining scope of the movie is all a case of whodunit, for lack of better phrasing. When the Chamberlain family returns home, they, rightfully so, receive an outpour of sympathy and compassion from the community. But, as authorities become more involved, they aren't buying Lindy's narrative that "a dingo at her baby" and Lindy's private ways of grieving aren't helping her in the eyes of the public.

I'm sure you are at least familiar with the story in some way or another, but if you aren't, hopefully, I'm helping via my research. What I think is also interesting is that keep in mind, this movie was released only two years after the fact (in 1988.) As Meryl put it in an interview with John Tibbets,

"I had a special task with this one because I was portraying someone whose life was still in litigation, so I had to be real, really accurate. With the other real people I've played, I've had a little more leeway, you know? With Isak Dinesen and Karen Silkwood, I could put more of myself in."

In late October 1982, seven months pregnant with the couple's second daughter, Lindy was convicted of murder in Azaria's death and sentenced to life in prison after a two-year trial. Her husband was sentenced to three months as an accessory. Then, on February 7th, 1986, she was officially released after Azaria's parka was found near a dingo inhabitation, and a hiker was found dead with evidence of being attacked by a dingo. In 1987, the family received 1.3 million dollars in compensation. Lindy and Michael divorced four years later, but they made very clear it wasn't because of Azaria's case. He remarried and died in January 2017; she remarried and is seventy-two years old today. The murder trial is Australia's most publicized case.

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So... Woah... There's plenty to unpack there. I want to be careful about how I close this out because obviously, I wasn't alive during the time, and so now that the case has been resolved, I have little room to talk. But, I will make mention of the fact that it's been proven now that Lindy didn't kill Azaria, which serves as evidence that the justice system isn't always right. In the movie, Lindy's very reserved, private, so I can understand why the public was at odds with her. Sometimes, I didn't like her character. But, come on, that was never enough to convict her of murder. I know it's complicated, I know it was a different time, but it's also sad. On a lighter note, I would also hate to not make mention of the fact that Meryl's Australian accent is so good it doesn't like Meryl.

As always, thank you for the entertainment, Meryl.