Review of The Arbor (2010) by Walter M — 04 Sep 2011

I'll bet you've never seen a documentary quite like "The Arbor." In this movie, ostensibly about the late playwright Andrea Dunbar, it has actors lip-synching testimony given by friends and relatives. But the story does not stop with her death, as it continues with her three children, especially the oldest, Lorraine, whose father is of Pakistani origin at a time when racism was particularly virulent.

Actually, "The Arbor" is an incisive documentary about how much a person's life is defined by their environment and how they are raised. There is plenty of archival footage comparing the poverty strewn streets of Andrea's time to the present, along with scenes peformed outside there from one of her plays carried out in front of an appreciative audience. It was presumed by outsiders with the success she had that she would use it to escape but she never did make it out, spending much of her free time in the local pub. When it came to her three children, two would go on to live apparently stable lives. It is Lorraine that has the troubled life of tragedy, as sexual abuse is mentioned also.