Friday, April 08, 2005

David Ansen

“For one cynical moment, when Meryl Streep first appears in A Cry in the Dark, you may be inclined to giggle. Oh God, what nationality is she this time? An Aussie? But the moment passes. Fast. Before long you may entirely forget you've ever seen this actress before. Wearing a brutal helmet of black hair, carrying herself with th bovine un-self-consciousness of a woman who has never given fasion a moment's thought, speaking with a perfect Australian accent, Streep vanishes magically before our eyes, replaced by the prickly, intransigently unglamorous Lindy Chamberlain--a mother who, when accused of murdering her infant child, became the focus of a lurid media thunderstorm. . . .

Lindy didn't do it. . . . [A]n entire nation of onlookers . . . seemed to find in Lindy Chamberlin an ideal scapegoat for all their worst fears about human nature. . . . [Ansen notes that Lindy's being a Seventh-day Adventist and her appearance of not mourning Azaria were factors in the public's reaction to her.] By the time . . . Lindy [was] brought to trial . . ., she had become the most hated woman in Australia, a modern-day witch.

It's a hair-raising, excrutiating story, made more uncomfortable by the uncompromising artistry of Streep and director Fred Schepisi. How easy it would have bben to turn Lindy into some saintly, put-upon victim of injustice, the sacrificial lamb of numerous TV movies. But though Schepisi's outrage burns bright, he's after tougher game. As in his much misunderstood movie of "Plenty," also with Streep, Schepisi is drawn to difficult, even unlikable heroines, and he makes no attempt to disguise the abrasive, bitter edges of Lindy's personality. Coldness is no sin, but in a world increasingly swayed by television images, Lindy's untelegenic comprotment may be the most damning evidence against her. . . .

David Ansen
Newsweek, November 14, 1988

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