My Dead Friend Zoe

Grade: A

My Dead Friend Zoe ends with commentary from the cast and crew, accompanied by a couple of QR codes – one of which allows you to “pay it forward” for a ticket for somebody else to see it. Another directs you to various links concerning something that would spoil a major plot point if I mentioned it. I’ve seen this sort of thing done at the end of a few films, particularly Sound of Freedom, Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot, and yes, Not Another Church Movie. I didn’t think too terribly highly of the aforementioned, but My Dead Friend Zoe is one of the year’s best.

The first scene takes place in Afghanistan in 2016, but the footage from overseas is just flashbacks. Merit is serving a tour of duty with her best friend Zoe, who she met there. They don’t see much action; it’s a lot of hurry-up-and wait, but they have each other. They joke that they won’t be traumatized by this, and if they ever see one another in “some damn PTSD support group, feel free to kill me.” Cut to both of them sitting in the circle of such a group.

It’s not what it looks like. Zoe isn’t really there, as indicated by the title. This is a situation like Fight Club or that Charlize Theron movie. Zoe has died due to reasons we learn about late in the film, and Merit hasn’t been able to let Zoe go. She follows her around. Merit has been court-ordered to attend these meetings. The group leader, Dr. Cole (Morgan Freeman), won’t sign the paper that says she was there, because he senses she’s holding something back. Though she is physically there, her “shares” – when she does speak – are safe, general, and superficial. She’s not opening up, and therefore, not taking steps toward healing.

Merit receives a call from her mother to go to her father/Merit’s grandfather’s lake house and take care of him. Dale (Ed Harris) has been showing signs of Alzheimer’s, and the descendants question whether he can still live alone anymore. They look into a local retirement home called Shady Acres. I may submit a piece of trivia to IMDb: Shady Acres is the name of the facility that Jim Carrey’s Ace Ventura visited in Pet Detective. Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, both in My Dead Friend Zoe (which name-checks Shady Acres) appeared opposite Carrey in Bruce Almighty and The Truman Show, respectively.

Of course, Zoe tags along. Natalie Morales gives us a Zoe with levels. I could believe the chemistry and camaraderie with Merit, and she also has moments of eeriness, when she reminds Merit that she’s a persistent piece of baggage that Merit can’t seem to release. Sonequa Martin-Green is a delight as Merit, and has many great scenes bonding with Harris as her grandfather. He is a Vietnam vet, and they exchange war stories. It also brought back my own memories of a grandfather who was a widower for the last 6 years of his life, and became increasingly more difficult to live with. He told me “Only record your stuff on the blue cassette tapes! The red ones are for me!” Dale tells Merit “Paper goes in trash can 6! Plastic goes in 3!”

Two years after A Good Person, which had Freeman as a recovering alcoholic, he is back in a different kind of support group circle. When I first saw him, I thought it was stunt or pigeonholed casting – but he gets to create a distinct character with its own pulse. Director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes occasionally gives us flashbacks to Afghanistan in quick, loud, jarring bursts – giving us a taste of the kind of trauma that millions of veterans must be experiencing. There is a potential love interest that will probably be a real relationship when the story continues beyond the final frame of the film, but it’s not played for cheapness. My Dead Friend Zoe is an enduring, touching, uplifting movie. It’s a pleasure to have seen it. It’s a crime that it’s in such a limited release, and has been pretty under-attended at that. I think you will love it. I should not have been alone in that theater.

Grade: A