Dreams of a Life

U.K. filmmaker Carol Morley's haunting blend of re-enactment and witness interviews literally puts flesh on the bones of a 2006 tabloid tragedy from London, where authorities belatedly discovered the skeleton of a woman in her small apartment above a busy shopping complex. She had been dead three years—the decomposed remains (not shown) still sprawled before a flickering TV. Apart from the social-services scandal of why a body remained so long unnoticed in a bustling metropolis, the identity of the dead woman was also shocking. Joyce Vincent was no elderly recluse but rather an attractive 38-year-old, with three sisters, a series of former boyfriends and suitors, and erstwhile workmates and acquaintances, who remember her as a vivacious club-hopper. She looked like Whitney Houston, says one, and Vincent did indeed circulate on the fringes of music-industry stardom. But who was Joyce Vincent really? Morley alternates between the Rashomon-style contrasting testimonials, sequences with actress Zawe Ashton playing the tormented Vincent, and dramatization of cleanup crews trying to decontaminate the scene of what may or may not have been a battered-woman crime or a suicide. But the real tragedy here is the extreme isolation of the Eleanor Rigby-ish heroine, whether self-inflicted or not. Vincent is not here to explain herself, but she certainly fell through the cracks of society, much too easily and utterly. Highly recommended. (C. Cassady)