The film's UK release date coincided with Christmas 2011, which was deliberate as the subject of the film, Joyce Carol Vincent, died from causes unknown shortly before Christmas 2003. Her body was not discovered until January 2007 when bailiffs acting on behalf of a housing association arrived at her flat with a repossession order as her rent had not been paid for 3 years. Questions were asked by her local MP, Lynne Featherstone (who appears in the film), as to how it was possible that her death had been unnoticed by anyone during the three-year period. The unusual and poignant nature of Joyce's demise led the film maker, Carol Morley, to begin investigating who Joyce had been and how she had been so abandoned in death. The film is the result of her efforts to piece together Joyce Carol Vincent.
Not long before her death we learn that Joyce was hospitalised for a peptic ulcer; she listed her next-of-kin at the hospital as her bank manager describing him as the person who knew her best. Yet the film features people from her life - ex-boyfriends, flat mates, friends, ex-colleagues - that she could have called upon. Although it is easy to believe that the circumstances of her death and body's subsequent discovery were the fault of a society whose care for its members has unravelled Al, one of Joyce's ex-boyfriends, states in the film that Joyce had some responsibility for her demise by pulling away and isolating herself from those who knew and cared about her. Beneath the sociological comment the film offers is a more profound study in Joyce's character and the tragedy that befell her. Indeed it seems as though a combination of traumas in her life had led Joyce, a great keeper of secrets, to isolate herself completely.
The film is an amazing production as the director, Morley, combines documentary style interviews, which flow naturally from the subjects, combined with a fictional account of Joyce's life informed by the interviews but fictionalised at other points. What is even more remarkable is that Morley painstakingly unearthed all the interviewees, pictures, film footage, sound recordings etc as none were available to the authorities in the aftermath of Joyce's death. The film also features Morley's montage of Joyce's time line from birth to death and what she discovers of events along the way. Interestingly Joyce's family did not want to be involved with the making of the film, wishing to remain anonymous.
Amongst the many things that Joyce Carol Vincent did in her life was to meet Nelson Mandela and the film ends with actual footage of Mandela addressing a small musical gathering at which Joyce was present and we see her on film. She was an unusual person, possessed of talents most of which were never realised. As one interviewee remarks (her ex-boyfriend Al) she never seemed to have a future and did not seem fully invested in life. The title is a play on both Joyce sleepwalking through life as well as the dream imagined for the viewer of Joyce's life.
Joyce sings during the film a song the refrain of which is 'my smile is a frown upside down'. She really reminds me of the man in Stevie Smith's poem 'Not Waving But Drowning', who "was much further out than you thought and not waving but drowning ... I was much too far out all my life ..."
Not long before her death we learn that Joyce was hospitalised for a peptic ulcer; she listed her next-of-kin at the hospital as her bank manager describing him as the person who knew her best. Yet the film features people from her life - ex-boyfriends, flat mates, friends, ex-colleagues - that she could have called upon. Although it is easy to believe that the circumstances of her death and body's subsequent discovery were the fault of a society whose care for its members has unravelled Al, one of Joyce's ex-boyfriends, states in the film that Joyce had some responsibility for her demise by pulling away and isolating herself from those who knew and cared about her. Beneath the sociological comment the film offers is a more profound study in Joyce's character and the tragedy that befell her. Indeed it seems as though a combination of traumas in her life had led Joyce, a great keeper of secrets, to isolate herself completely.
The film is an amazing production as the director, Morley, combines documentary style interviews, which flow naturally from the subjects, combined with a fictional account of Joyce's life informed by the interviews but fictionalised at other points. What is even more remarkable is that Morley painstakingly unearthed all the interviewees, pictures, film footage, sound recordings etc as none were available to the authorities in the aftermath of Joyce's death. The film also features Morley's montage of Joyce's time line from birth to death and what she discovers of events along the way. Interestingly Joyce's family did not want to be involved with the making of the film, wishing to remain anonymous.
Amongst the many things that Joyce Carol Vincent did in her life was to meet Nelson Mandela and the film ends with actual footage of Mandela addressing a small musical gathering at which Joyce was present and we see her on film. She was an unusual person, possessed of talents most of which were never realised. As one interviewee remarks (her ex-boyfriend Al) she never seemed to have a future and did not seem fully invested in life. The title is a play on both Joyce sleepwalking through life as well as the dream imagined for the viewer of Joyce's life.
Joyce sings during the film a song the refrain of which is 'my smile is a frown upside down'. She really reminds me of the man in Stevie Smith's poem 'Not Waving But Drowning', who "was much further out than you thought and not waving but drowning ... I was much too far out all my life ..."