My Dead Friend Zoe | SXSW 2024 Film Review

When My Dead Friend Zoe opens in Afghanistan, 2016, all bets are off on what type of film this will ultimately be. We meet two close friends, Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Zoe (Natalie Morales), stationed together, laughing, and singing, doing everything possible to add a bit of levity to their current situation. We are immediately taken with this beautiful friendship blossoming under the weight of a needless war. But the title says it all, in the present day, we learn that Zoe is dead. 

The “what and why” of it all is learned over the course of the film, but Merit is still wrestling with her own PTSD over the events that led to Zoe’s death. So much that she still lives, laughs, and sings with Zoe as a figment of her own emotional trauma. Merit’s struggles putting this behind her have even led her to court-ordered group therapy, led by Morgan Freeman’s Dr. Cole, who refuses to sign off on Merit’s release until she shares why she is there. Something Merit, for reasons we learn as the film rolls on, is unable to do.

Complicating matters more is Merit’s grandfather, Dale (Ed Harris). As the veteran Merit based her career on, Dale helped shape her life without him ever realizing it, and therefore Merit has avoided him since returning from the war. Dale also has the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, and now it is up to Merit to follow her mother’s wishes (an underutilized Gloria Reuben) and tear him away from his lakeside cabin and commit Dale to an assisted living facility. Which just happens to be run by a potential suitor of Merit’s in Alex (a delightfully charming Utkarsh Ambudkar).

Director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, working from a script by Hausmann-Stokes and A.J. Bermudez, is a veteran himself. As he stated at the SXSW premiere of My Dead Friend Zoe, this is a film devoted to those who serve and that respect comes shining through. Don’t mistake that for yet another film from Hollywood either glorifying or tearing down the military’s every decision. No, this is about the women and men who make the choice to don that uniform, stand for something greater than themselves, and use it as a segue to a better life. It is about what happens to them when they return, the home the military both gives and taketh away, and the sheer lack of true appreciation from an often ungrateful nation. A stellar script handled with the hands of a director who obviously cares passionately for the subject matter.

Full disclosure, I joined the military because of my grandfather, just as Merit did here, and I know countless enlistees who wanted to enlist in honor of their loved ones. It is a sign of honor and respect, and one that is rarely treated as such in the entertainment of today. The truthfulness of this arc, watching the shame on Martin-Green’s face for failing to live up to her grandfather’s standards, or the price in Harris’s eyes at watching his granddaughter stand in unity with him as they celebrate their contributions to their country, is a direct assault on my heart. It is a beautiful relationship that I know all too well, and both Sonequa Martin-Green and Ed Harris capture that primal pride stuffed with monumental regret exceptionally well.

Natalie Morales, whether it be flashbacks or as Merit’s ghostly id, lightens every scene with her effortlessly wry wit, and when things take a dramatic turn in the final act, she crushes that too. This film is a character piece on the relationships forged in the military and the audience needs to immediately comprehend why Zoe is so pivotal to Merit’s existential crisis – a factor Morales handles with ease.

Ultimately, though, this film belongs to Sonequa Martin-Green. Merit is a mess, yet also a woman of devotion and strength. As we roll through Merit’s unraveling, Martin-Green crests a mountain of emotion, peaks and valleys abound, delivering her finest performance yet. Up, down, jovial, heartbroken, lost, confused, embarrassed, prideful; every feeling is in her arsenal, and ultimately makes My Dead Friend Zoe one of the best films of the year already. Bravo.

My Dead Friend Zoe is a wild title that immediately brings to mind concepts relating to a remake of Weekend at Bernie’s. No, that is not this film. Zoe revolves around love, loss, redemption, regret, and the ramifications of war. It also happens to be hilarious and meaningful to anyone, whether or not they have ever served.

Deep emotional impact does not happen often on screen these days, but when it does, film can be a transformative experience. I walked into My Dead Friend Zoe trepidatious, cautious even, unsure of what this journey could be. I exited the theater wearing tears of both joy and pain, and once again reminded why I still to this day look up at a flag and recall the sacrifices of so many men and women over time. Not only while wearing the uniform, but especially while trying to adapt back into society without it. 

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