On C List of Movie Reviews
(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)
A Cry in the Dark (1988)
Rate:
10
Viewed:
12/15
12/15:
I knew most of Seinfeld quotes by heart, but I never realized Elaine's "Maybe the dingo ate your baby" was based
on a real-life Australian case, which is one of the strangest I've read, that was made into a movie called
A Cry in the Dark.
In fact, it would've been good fodder for Arthur Conan Doyle while coming up with a new Sherlock Holmes story. Well, yeah...this
is the film with the famous quote: "The dingo took my baby!"
Beyond that, it gets weirder, especially the media's invasion of the family's life and the strange twists and turns
during the court case which ultimately saw the mother as the killer of her own baby. Eventually, she was exonerated of
all charges after it had been conclusively proven the dingo did in fact take the baby, something that I knew from the
start, and therefore attacked her to death.
Great performances are rendered by Meryl Streep and Sam Neill. Both surprised me by being less of themselves and more
of their characters. However, it's the story per se that's the winning feature of the film.
All in all, there's no question that A Cry in the Dark is an all-time great classic that shows the truth can
sometimes be stranger than fiction.