A family’s confession of alcoholism, brain haemorrhages, drugs, prostitution, domestic violence and a toddler who dies of a methadone overdose. In the wrong hands, the life story of British playwright Andrea Dunbar could easily become fare for one of those tragedy-porn television series who boast programme titles like The Man Who Ate His Lover and A Dingo Stole My Baby! However, Clio Barnard’s debut feature manages to deal with difficult subject matter sensitively and originally.
Combining elements of documentary, confessional drama and theatre, Barnard uses reconstructed interviews, archive footage and a performance of Dunbar’s play The Arbor on the eponymous green of her run-down housing estate to create a truly unique and genre-defying experience.
After conducting intense and revealing interviews with Dunbar’s children, friends and neighbours, actors lip-sync to the audio tracks. This technique simply should not work, but the actors manage to capture every nuance and breath so that while not always perfectly in sync, the delivery is thoroughly believable and shows Barnard’s respect for her subjects. Allowing them to tell their story while preserving their privacy, Barnard conveys their emotions and experiences without turning them into sensationalist tabloid fare.
Far from being a reverential celebration of Dunbar’s life and work, the interviews give an unflinchingly honest account of her alcoholism and negligent parenting, with frequent references to the inherent racism she felt towards her eldest daughter Lorraine, whose father was Pakistani. Highlighting the seeming inevitable downward spiral of the women in this disadvantaged area, Andrea comes to emulate the drunken and abusive characters of her plays until her untimely death, and Lorraine’s unresolved issues with her mother cause a lifelong pattern of self-destructive behaviour that’s sadly the norm for this rough community.
Though The Arbor is hard to watch, it’s even harder to define, but it’s clear that this is Andrea, this is England, and this is extraordinary.