Music, Style & Culture

LFF 2011: Dreams Of A Life

Unmissable docudrama, featuring Zawe Ashton as tragic Londoner Joyce Vincent.

Receiving its world premiere at the 55th BFI London Film Festival is this profoundly powerful docudrama. A labour of love for filmmaker Carol Morley (The Alcohol Years), she spent years unveiling the woman behind one of the most tragic news stories of 2006. In a flat above London's Wood Green shopping centre, Joyce Carol Vincent's decomposing remains were discovered by bailiffs, with the lights on and television still blaring. Staggeringly, it was estimated that Vincent, 38, had died three years previously, but not a single person had realised she was missing.

In this deeply moving film, Morley puts a face and history to the name, seeking out Vincent's shocked former friends and colleaues. Horrifyingly, it shows how easily a vivacious, popular woman can slip under the radar and end up completely forgotten. Placing adverts in papers and on the side of black cabs, Morley assembled several figures from Vincent's past, although tellingly, no family members wished to be interviewed. The names and relationship of the interviewees are never directly stated, leaving the viewer to slowly establish the context. One key figure is Martin, the closest thing to a best friend Vincent had, and his testimony is devastatingly tender and emotional.

The frank opinions and anecdotes end up revealing a lot more about the interviewees than the subject. For example, when it's revealed that in the lost years before her death Vincent spent time in an abused women's refuge, one man remarks "she's not the sort of woman who deserved that". Vincent's beauty is constantly referred to, by both the men and women, and there's something quite troubling about the shallowness of the recollections. It's worth remembering that Vincent passed away just before the explosion of Facebook, which transformed and aided friendships - an irony that's not lost on her old friends. Social networking is lambasted for creating meaningless friend counts, but it shows how easy Vincent could've kept in contact without awkward phone calls or explanations.

What makes Dreams of a Life so especially affecting is Morley's dramatisation of key moments in Vincent's life. Initially, it comes across as a touch sensationalist, especially when aghast council workers are depicted discovering her remains. However, Morley has an ace up her sleeve in the form of one Zawe Ashton. The British actress (Blitz, Fresh Meat) is haunting in her largely silent scenes, portraying Vincent in flashbacks as the party girl, wannabe soul singer and eventually the weary bedsit dweller who died alone, wrapping presents for people who didn't even notice she was gone. Ashton is every bit as bewitching as the descriptions, painting a character that is radiant yet vulnerable. Morley bravely includes a scene of Ashton singing the entirety of 'My Smile Is Just A Frown Turned Upside Down' into a hairbrush, which allows for poignant reflection of a life never lived to its fullest.

Dreams of a Life inadvertently paints a damning picture of big city society, and how easy it is to fall out of fashion, but doesn't point wagging fingers or pass judgment on the affected parties. The interviewees' brutal honesty and Ashton's sensitive re-enactment make for an utterly heartbreaking film, but one that is unmissable. And just when you think you're out of tears, Morley drops a coda that elicits a final whirpool of conflicting emotions.

Rating: 9/10