Dreams Of A Life

500 Days Of Film Reviews Documentary, Dreams Of A Life, From Director Carol Morely

Surrounded by the Christmas presents that she was wrapping, Joyce Vincent died in her bedsit in North London in 2003. She was 38 years old. Joyce's body was not discovered for three years. 

Carol Morely's heartbreaking and unsettling documentary, Dreams Of A Life, investigates Joyce’s life and interviews those people who knew her best but who did not realise that she was gone.

Dreams Of A Life had a powerful impact on me. I felt such a deep level of sadness whilst watching it and that emotion has stayed with me for days. I feel it every time I think about this film and it weighs heavily on me.  

I just cannot understand how Joyce could have slipped through the cracks of society in the way that she did. Of course, Carol Morely's documentary does not give us any answers - how could it? 

And yet, I still wanted those answers. I wanted the film to tell me how such a thing could happen to a woman in our society - a woman who had family and friends.   

While we can never escape the tragedy of her final moments, Dreams Of A Life

allows us to focus not just on Joyce’s death but on her life. It reminds us how we mean different things to different people and questions just how much we are ever truly known.

And, despite the terrible sadness of this story, there is comfort to be had in the fact that Joyce was loved.  

Have you seen Dreams Of A Life? What did you think about this documentary? I would love to know - do leave a comment in the section below!