Dreams Of A Life (Carol Morley, 2011)

One of the most harrowing tabloid stories of recent times finally finds its way to the big screen in this sensitive documentary feature that attempts at long last to unravel the mystery behind Joyce Carol Vincent - the woman society forgot about.

The story of Joyce is as lurid as it is mysterious. In January 2006, council officials broke down the door of a grimy London bedsit with the intent to evict its tenant. Upon entering, they discovered that the tenant, Joyce Vincent, had long since departed, leaving behind her corpse which had been rotting undisturbed for over two years, surrounded by Christmas presents that she had just wrapped.

The discovery acted as a stunning signal of societal failure and begged many questions - how could a young woman simply disappear unnoticed? The Christmas presents proved that she had close friends in her life so why hadn't anyone reported her missing? And, in one of the most disconcerting elements of the case, the television had remained on the entire time, perpetually throwing flickering images over the corpse of Joyce. Had noone visited the flat regarding the huge unpaid electricity bill? And with a foul stench and swarms of flies engulfing the tiny bedsit, why hadn't any neighbours or the landlord investigated? Filmmaker Carol Morley sensitively attempts to paint a picture of the woman behind the headlines, having tracked down a wide collection of Joyce's friends and loved ones, who express grief, regret and disbelief over the sad fate of this most mysterious woman.

For the most part, Morley navigates away from the grim details of the manner of Joyce's death and discovery, which have been much discussed in the tabloid newspapers already (one interviewee describes her body as having "melted into the carpet", and we really need know no more than that). Instead, Morley takes the sensitive and more intriguing route of attempting to establish who Joyce was as a person. Tabloid journalists had discovered almost nothing about her and not a single image of her was included in the newspaper articles, making it hard for anybody to truly identify with her. But, owing to a persistent campaign appealing for anyone who may have known Joyce, Morley has managed to gather an astonishing collection of interesting, pleasant contemporaries (ranging from old schoolfriends and past boyfriends to ex-housemates and work colleagues) who paint a picture of a vibrant young woman who drew attention wherever she went, had a talent for singing, and had enjoyed encounters with Isaac Hayes, Nelson Mandela and Stevie Wonder.  The testimonies, accompanied by dramatic reconstructions, make the idea of Joyce's fate all the more cryptic and desperately tragic.

Through the interviews, we learn that, due to the positive image of Joyce that her peers held of her, and the lack of photographs or personal information in the newspapers, not one of her friends made the connection, instead holding the belief that she must be leading an enviable lifestyle far away from the grim reality of her existence. Her friend's admission that she will forever feel uncomfortable with the fact that she so easily lost touch with Joyce, and her ex-boyfriend's anguished tears as he imagines rescuing her from her dire situation stand as some of the most powerful pieces of documentary footage from recent years. The reconstructions, in which Joyce is sensitively portrayed by actress Zawe Ashton, are appropriately underplayed, while creative aspects such as the use of the dusty television set (that which illuminated Joyce's skeleton all that time) to screen some of the talking heads, are stunningly powerful. 

Unsurprisingly, the documentary fails to truly shed any more light on how such a positive, popular young woman came to die in so cruel and lonely a manner (one old friend insists she must have been murdered, while the rest appear resigned to the fact that we will never know the cause of death), but it excels in finally giving a life and voice to the person behind the tabloid scoop, an achievement that cannot be overstated.