Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1988

The Contenders:

Jodie Foster: The Accused (winner)
Meryl Streep: A Cry in the Dark
Glenn Close: Dangerous Liaisons
Sigourney Weaver: Gorillas in the Mist
Melanie Griffith: Working Girl

Dingos Ate My Baby

Film: A Cry in the Dark
Format: DVD from Bourbonnais Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

Give me a movie starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill and you’d expect me to be excited about seeing it. So why was it so hard for me to get through A Cry in the Dark? Is it that it’s a courtroom drama? It can’t be that; I tend to like a lot of courtroom dramas. Is it the obvious religious connection? I’ve never shied away from films with far more overtly religious themes than this one. It can’t be that it takes place in Australia, because I’ve never had a problem with Australian films, either. For whatever reason, though, I got this movie through interlibrary loan almost six weeks ago and had to renew my checkout. I only watched it because I couldn’t renew it again and feel guilty not watching something I’ve ordered from another library.

A Cry in the Dark, also known as Evil Angels, is the story of the Chamberlain family who lost their young daughter Azaria during a camping trip in the Australian outback. While there are plenty of witnesses to what happens, public opinion almost immediately turns against the Chamberlains for a variety of reasons. Primary among those reasons is the Chamberlain’s religion. As Seventh-Day Adventists, they are significantly religiously “other” from mainstream Australia, and are thus assumed to be something of a cult and thus not above child sacrifice.