Sean Parker
As horror movie lovers, we’re captivated by ghost stories—the fun ones, the dramatic ones, and the ones that are hauntingly unshakable. When The Sixth Sense was released twenty-six years ago, it shook audiences. The symphony of gasps released in the auditorium as traumatic truths were revealed from a specter-seeing boy to his therapist are the kinds of unshakable moments in moviegoing that remind us why we go in the first place. I felt a familiarity to that sensation with My Dead Friend Zoe this evening. Though the Sonequa Martin-Green (Star Trek: Discovery, The Walking Dead) led drama is similar in that she does, in fact, see one dead person, the gut-wrenching, heart-sinking climax will hit you like a ton of bricks.
My Dead Friend Zoe isn’t a traditional horror film. It may deal with ghosts, trauma, and grief, but it’s far from the freewheeling fare of blood-spatter motion pictures we typically consider when those elements are together. Writer-director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes based this movie on events and people from his own life, back when he was a paratrooper in the United States Army, and crafted a bold, pitch-black, PTSD-infused dramedy about suffering a tragic loss in silence.
Green’s character in the film, Merit Charles, isn’t doing so hot after returning home from Afghanistan. A legal incident has pushed her into court-mandated group counseling sessions, and the moderator, Dr. Cole (Morgan Freeman), is running out of patience with Merit’s inability to recount what has traumatized her. The opportunity to ignore these sessions presents itself when Merit’s mother (Firestarter’s Gloria Reuben) asks her to stay with her ailing veteran grandfather Dale (Ed Harris), who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s after he’s found wandering the highway not knowing where he was going. Merit decides to spend time at Dale’s and abandon group support, all because of one big issue: The ghost of her dead platoon mate Zoe (I’m Totally Fine’s Natalie Morales) haunts her wherever she goes.
Hausmann-Stokes has put together a fantastically resonant film about PTSD and mental health crises, brilliantly illuminating the toll it takes on military personnel where the rates of suicide and addiction have skyrocketed. According to the American Addiction Centers website, “In 2020, there were 6,146 Veteran suicides, which averages to 16.8 Veterans dying by suicide every day. Additionally, in the two decades between 2001 and 2020, the prevalence of mental health or substance use disorder (SUD) among participants using Veterans Health Administration (VHA) rose from 27.9% to 41.9%.” Hausman-Stokes shows us why getting Merit to talk about what happened to Zoe is crucial as she fights an unseen war within herself over the loss of her friend.
My Dead Friend Zoe isn’t all seriousness and drama. Hausmann-Stokes also infuses a lot of humor, romance, and a little bit of tension into scenes, often catching the viewer off guard. The film has some great laugh-out-loud moments, providing insight into the nature of these complex emotions. However, anytime Merit’s on the verge of saying anything about Zoe, Merit has an anxiety attack and believes lights are flickering and doors are slamming, inferring Zoe’s disdain for Merit’s actions and riveting viewers through the dark details. She connects with Alex (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who’s helping her reserve a spot for her grandfather at a nearby retirement facility after first bumping into him on a run. Running seems to be a lot of what Merit is doing. Hausmann-Stokes infuses metaphor for Merit to clear her head, and when that solace is once interrupted, shows her running away from issues that continue to build until she’s unable to run away any longer.
Hausmann-Stokes approaches his feature-length debut with grace and patience, delicately applying thematic sensitivity where necessary and building to an agonizing revelation. My Dead Friend Zoe is poignant and tragic but also optimistic and humorous. There’s a common misconception tied to mental health struggles that assumes people don’t or can’t experience joy when they’re depressed, which is simply untrue. The idea of Merit holding onto Zoe is as symbolic of happiness as it is an act of contrition. The director, a veteran himself, strikes an outstanding balance of temperance, magnified tenfold by Sonequa Martin-Green’s uniquely absorbing performance.
Ensemble films always have great casts, but My Dead Friend Zoe has one of the best that I’ve seen in a while. Harris and Freeman are always at the top of their games, but their roles are more condensed as secondary characters to Martin-Green, Morales, and Ambudkar. Ambudkar is most notable to me through his side characters in films like Free Guy, Mulan, and Brittany Runs a Marathon. I’ve never seen his work on CBS’s Ghosts, but he’s very impressive as a leading man in My Dead Friend Zoe. I’ll probably check out his show after seeing what he’s capable of. Counter to that, I have become a huge fan of Natalie Morales. I think she’s an underrated national treasure who, despite having been seen in a lot over the past few years (Stuber, Santa Clarita Diet, The Little Things, Mr. Mayor, Dead To Me, History of the World: Part II, No Hard Feelings, The Morning Show), stays consistently charming.
Though My Dead Friend Zoe is a fantastic film overall, I observed a few technical issues. The most significant is Zoe’s commentary on Dale’s place, though they had already visited in a previous scene. The moment, occurring early in the movie, brings a feeling of discord into the film, momentarily causing confusion in continuity. However, that subtle dissociation also lingers in other scenes, as if the film may have reshot a few scenes or expanded upon a couple. Given that it’s a film, certain pieces need to breathe while others will wrap themselves up nicely. Still, My Dead Friend Zoe sometimes fixes its problems a little too completely, as if it’s systematically overcoming them and moving on. It works because it seems like a very military-influenced way to turn attention to the next urgent matter. However, distilling nuance and simmering in the emotional resonance of these moments has a higher potential to elevate the film’s profundity.
Nevertheless, Hausmann-Stokes and Martin-Green manage to pull at viewers’ heartstrings all the same, and there’s sincerity in seeing them make it their mission to help. At the end of My Dead Friend Zoe, Hausmann-Stokes shows the servicemen and women who appear on screen and among the film’s crew and goes even further by providing charities like the Bob Woodruff Foundation, The Mission Continues, and Everytown: For Gun Safety to offer better access to mental health care for service members. You can also help provide tickets and screenings of My Dead Friend Zoe to veterans through the movie’s website.
My Dead Friend Zoe is now playing in theaters nationwide.
My Dead Friend Zoe | Official Trailer | In Theaters February 28
Engaged in a mysterious relationship with wise-cracking (and dead) best friend from the Army, a female Afghanistan veteran reluctantly reunites with her estranged Vietnam vet grandfather at the family’s ancestral lake house. #MyDeadFriendZoe is exclusively in theaters February 28
