My Dead Friend Zoe

Review by Mark Woodring

You should know by now how much I enjoy jumping in to movies about the military. Hazard of being a veteran, I suppose.

Now, do I LIKE every movie in the milieu? Hardly.

You may recall the epic disagreement I had with Ryan regarding a film I absolutely expected to love, Dunkirk.

So where does My Dead Friend Zoe rank for me?

**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**

My Dead Friend Zoe - Review
My Dead Friend Zoe (Legion M)

98 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, Cherish Chen, A.J. Bermudez
Directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes

Synopsis:

Engaged in a mysterious relationship with her dead best friend from the Army, a female Afghanistan veteran comes head to head with her Vietnam vet grandfather at the family’s ancestral lake house.

 

Told in three strands: Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green) trying to get through group therapy sessions, Merit dealing with her grandfather as he begins to slip into Alzheimer’s, and flashbacks of Merit serving in the Army with Zoe (Natalie Morales).

Writer/director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes deftly weaves these three strands, and the information they give us, together in a deliberate, but never slow, way. The relationship between Merit and Zoe while deployed is familiar to anyone who has served, whether in a combat zone or not. It’s real, it’s casual, it’s serious, and it is deeper than you might think possible until you are in it.

It’s even deeper once you’re out of it, because as Merit is experiencing, it’s difficult to get OUT of it.

As the group counselor, Morgan Freeman brings his quiet dignity (and likely his experience as a veteran himself) to the role, trying to get out of Merit what is in so many ways poisoning her. Ed Harris embodies Merit’s grandfather, a veteran, with the general decency and profound sense of independence so many veterans of his time carry.

These two solid bookends allow Martin-Green and Morales to stretch their wings in their scenes together, but always kept inside the lines by their costars.

Martin-Green carries the film with her performance, alternating between stoic strength and desperate anguish with jarring intensity and ease (if that’s possible), but doesn’t overshadow Morales’ Zoe, both the wartime and post versions.

Of the cast, I was probably most surprised by Morales’ work, as she was the least familiar to me, and her performance kept the balance of the all-around level of excellence intact.

So, YES: I really enjoyed My Dead Friend Zoe. It did everything I wanted and expected it to do without preaching or overreacting or even underplaying the scars Merit carries.

I suppose the simplest reason for liking the film is that I, too, had a friend. His name was Dave.

My Dead Friend Zoe hits theaters Friday, February 28, and stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Utkasrsh Ambudkar, and Gloria Reuben.

And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.

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