Merit, the heroine of My Dead Friend Zoe, is never really alone. A ghost who looks a lot like Merit’s late Army buddy Zoe is constantly around, visible and audible only to her, heckling her, wrecking her attempts to express her grief and generally being an affectionate obstacle to her personal growth.
Despite the warnings from her support group leader (Morgan Freeman) that she must participate in the court-ordered therapy, Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green) slips off to a bleak, environmentally depleted looking stretch of Oregon forest to stay with her grandfather Dale (Ed Harris). A Vietnam vet and her adored role model, Dale is showing early signs of dementia, and Merit’s mom (Gloria Rueben) wants to sell his beautiful lake house and put him in a retirement home.
Through all of this, not to mention a potential new romance with the retirement home guy (Utkarsh Ambudkar), Zoe keeps wisecracking, mocking and taunting her. We also get teasing flashbacks about what happened in Afghanistan that led to her trauma.
Directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes from a script he wrote with A.J. Bermudez and Cherish Chen – an adaptation of his short film Merit x Zoe – My Dead Friend Zoe is a movie with a mission. A veteran of Afghanistan himself who lost buddies, Hausmann-Stokes is determined to call attention to the plight of bereaved and PTSD-afflicted veterans; the film ends with messages of support from the cast and with information on how to help and/or get help.
That said, it isn’t a glorified didactic training film. Martin-Green offers a heartbreaking depiction of a guilty grief that doesn’t want to let go, that regards every temptation to happiness as a betrayal. She’s superb, and Natalie Morales is equally good as the playful, mischievous Zoe. While Freeman is never not good, his role here is not extensive, but Harris makes his coiled anger frightening even when he’s not speaking.
The direction of Hausmann-Stokes is also potent. Without melodrama, he gets across how chaotic and alienating the everyday world might seem to a person of Merit’s experience. It will be interesting to see if he can bring the same kind of vision to a movie that’s less of a labor of love.
