Evil Angels

August 1980, Uluru. A family camping there wakes to a noise from the tent. The mother says a dingo took her nine-week-old daughter Azaria out of it. The baby is never found. The first inquest accepts her account but the press does not: Lindy Chamberlain does not cry, her husband is a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, and every rumour anyone can invent about the church goes into circulation. At the end of the second inquiry Lindy is convicted of murder. The film is about public opinion rather than the courtroom. In scenes cut in throughout, ordinary people discuss the case in bars, kitchens and buses, and the verdict is delivered there. The real subject is not evidence but an expectation about how a woman ought to grieve. Fred Schepisi directed, adapting John Bryson's book Evil Angels with Robert Caswell. Meryl Streep plays Lindy and Sam Neill plays Michael. Streep won best actress at Cannes in 1989 and the AFI award in Australia for the part, with Oscar and Golden Globe nominations following. It opened in Australia on 4 November 1988, less than two months after the Chamberlains were cleared on appeal. Who it is for: anyone who likes true-case narratives and films that criticise the media. Who it is not for: anyone wanting emotional closeness. The film keeps Lindy deliberately cold, the pace is heavy, and the court sections run long.