Bruce Beresford returned to the austerity of his first Australian films with The Fringe Dwellers. Kristina Nehm stars as an Aborigine woman named Trilby, who along with her tribespeople lives on the fringes of "accepted" Australian society. Trilby's mother (Justine Saunders) urges her family to remove themselves from squalor and move up to a fashionable all-white suburb. What with the snobbery of her new neighbors and an onslaught of visiting relatives, Trilby never has a moment of happiness. She seeks solace in the arms of her boyfriend (Ernie Dingo), but this only results in an unwanted pregnancy. Her "escape" to a better life is an indirect result of her newborn child's death. Bruce and Rhoisin Beresford adapted the script of The Fringe Dwellers from the novel by Nene Gare.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide