Z/Web

This is one of those serious dramas with awesome acting you’re supposed to see but like medicine, isn’t supposed to actually taste good. Therefore, though the actor in me wanted to see Meryl Streep’s fine performance, another part of me wasn’t too excited about seeing this. I actually recorded it on my HD movie channel several times and deleted it, but this time I finally got around to watching it, and you know what? This is an awesome movie! It’s not boring at all. It’s fascinating story. It’s based on real-life events that happened in Australia back in the early 1980s: a pastor and his wife, while vacationing in a rural area, have their baby daughter stolen by a dingo (a wild dog). The tragedy upsets the nation and spotlights the couple with media attention, but then the baby’s clothes are found, supposedly “folded,” and the police lab reports that the clothes have no dingo saliva on them. Suddenly the couple go from sad victims to murder suspects. Another key aspect of the story is that since the couple are religious and a little bit fantatical about it (vegetarian, etc.), people start to use that against them, with the police finding highlighted passages of scripture in the couple’s Bible that might implicate them, etc. We watch as the media circus hurts the couple and tries to tear them apart, and eventually there’s a big trial with the wife accused of murder despite little concrete evidence. It comes down to her personality: does the jury like her or think she’s capable of murdering her own baby? Well, she comes across as unemotional and detached, capable of calmly discussing a wild dog eating her baby, and the jury thinks that makes her seem guilty. Like I said, it’s a fascinating movie. It’s very similar to the hype and media sensation of something like the O.J. Simpson trial here. Definitely worth your time and highly recommended. And Streep as the wife is amazing.