Dreams of a Life

The power of kinship is explored in Carol Morley’s drama-documentary, drawn from real life and resonant with the way we live now.

In 2006, the body of 38-year-old Joyce Vincent was found in her North London bedsit. Her death, from unknown causes, had gone undetected by neighbours, friends or family for nearly three years. Carol Morley’s captivating, insightful film traces Joyce's life and interviews those who knew her in a bid to understand why this popular woman died so alone.

Dreams of a Life is an imaginative, powerful, multilayered quest, and is not only a portrait of Joyce but a portrait of London in the eighties—the City, music, and race. It is a film about urban lives, contemporary life, and how, like Joyce, we are all different things to different people. It is about how little we may ever know each other, but nevertheless, how much we can love.