In one of the strangest but fairly effective film devices ever used to tell the story of a young Army veteran’s struggle with PTSD, My Dead Friend Zoe could be looked at as a dark comedy about the journey of Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green), who served in Afghanistan and is still having visions and conversations with her recently deceased best friend, Zoe (Natalie Morales), who served with her. Based on the short film Merit x Zoe, director/co-writer Kyle Hausmann-Stokes (who penned the screenplay with A.J. Bermudez) makes it clear that these two female soldiers took on routinely dangerous missions and survived them using each other (and Rihanna’s song “Umbrella”) for courage.
But now that Merit is home, she’s struggling, even in trouble with the law, and she’s forced to attend group support meetings led by VA counselor Dr. Cole (Morgan Freeman). She refuses to share her feelings and whatever the guilt or shame is that’s holding her back, but we’re led to believe it has something to do with Zoe, who died under circumstances we’re not privy to until the end of the film.
While all of this is going on, Merit’s mother (Gloria Reuben) calls and asks her to visit her grandfather, Dale (Ed Harris), another Army vet who was recently diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, at the family’s lake house. She ends up reuniting with Dale after many years of not seeing him, and while mom wants to put him in a retirement home and sell the house out from under him, Merit attempts to make herself useful to the man who inspired her to join the military in the first place. She also makes a tentative love connection with the manager of the home (Utkarsh Ambudkar), while still attempting (and mostly failing) to ignore the figure of Zoe, who has no issues reminding her that Merit is the reason she’s dead.
My Dead Friend Zoe debuted at last year’s SXSW Film Festival, and like many films that play there, it’s got some decent laughs in places while also leaving plenty of room for tears and other strong emotional responses. Martin-Green has the perfect face to display both joy and the overwhelming emotional toll that the war and her friend’s death have taken on her. We’re led to believe that Zoe died in the Middle East, but the truth is much worse in many ways, and it takes until the end of the film to realize what the actual purpose and message of this film is. There is a complex friendship, family upheaval, and a serious look at the way we process (or don’t process) grief.
The Zoe who presents herself to Merit isn’t the friend she knew in Afghanistan; it’s the embodiment of what Merit feels she deserves for letting someone down. The film packs an unexpected gut punch when all is revealed, and the impact is one you likely won’t forget.
The film opens theatrically on Friday.
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