Dreams of a Life (2011) on Netflix
NR20111h 35mBiographyDocumentaryDrama
Joyce Vincent died in her North London flat in 2003. Her skeletal remains were found just over two years later, and a filmmaker sets out to learn who she was.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.8/103,611 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
Joyce Vincent's remains lay in her Wood Green flat, in North London, undiscovered until January 2006, with Christmas gifts still wrapped around her and her television switched on. She had died in December 2003, and the decomposition was too advanced for a cause of death to be established. The newspaper report of the discovery carried no age, no race and no photograph, which sent a filmmaker looking for the people who had known Joyce. Over five years she placed advertisements in newspapers and sent a cab around London carrying a poster that asked anyone who had known Joyce to get in touch. The replies came from friends, acquaintances, former partners, a former landlord and a man who had recorded her singing, set beside reconstructions of Joyce's life.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dreams of a Life (2011)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Carol Morley spent five years tracking down interviewees, taking out ads in newspapers and hiring a cab to drive around London bearing a poster asking people to contact her if they knew Joyce.
- Joyce's four sisters all refused to be in the film and asked Morley not to make it; she went ahead with production but gave them an advance screening to show that she had been respectful in remembering their sister.
- Morley was surprised to learn that many of the respondents did not know Joyce was dead until she spoke to them, even though some remembered hearing of her death when it was reported on in newspapers.
- The documentary inspired two records: Steven Wilson's album Hand. Cannot. Erase. came out of his viewing of the film, and Paloma Faith's song “Lost and Lonely”, from the album The Architect, was written and recorded in response to seeing it.
- Morley was criticized for an extended fictionalized sequence featuring Zawe Ashton as Joyce performing the song “A Smile is Just a Frown”, but said she was inspired to keep it by a similar sequence in Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7.
