Snarky, sly and deeply sincere: “My Dead Friend Zoe” is like your childhood best friend. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, and it calls you out when you’re not being honest. The film is a laugh-out-loud comedic tale born from a very unlikely place…deep in the belly of grief.
Parts of the movie are sardonic and sad. After all, every single day, Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green) is haunted by her dead best friend from the Army, who she served with in Afghanistan. Zoe (Natalie Morales) shows up beside Merit all day, every day, and even sleeps next to her in bed. Zoe’s sarcastic, biting humor keeps Merit honest, but she also keeps her trapped in a self-deprecating bubble from which she can’t escape.
The tables are turned when Merit comes head to head with her Vietnam vet grandfather (Ed Harris) at the family’s ancestral lake house. There, she has to confront her grandfather’s new diagnosis with Alzheimer’s and facilitate his potential move into the Shady Acres Retirement Home, all while attending court-ordered PTSD therapy due to an unfortunate incident with a coworker. Did I mention the therapist is played by Morgan Freeman?
Throw a love interest into the mix (played by the hilarious Utkarsh Ambudkar) and you have a recipe for disaster. Because, how can Merit be truthful with her new friend when she’s never told anyone about Zoe’s presence?
“My Dead Friend Zoe” tackles the often-avoided, and sometimes deadly struggle of PTSD in the veteran community. It also shows us that there’s no right or wrong way to process grief. But by sharing the sorrow with others, and by forging new connections with those who have also suffered great loss, you can start to build anew.
Movie Times: Click Here
Genre: Drama
Director: Kyle Hausmann-Stokes
Actors: Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman
Run Time: 1 hour 41 minutes
Rating: R for Language
