MY DEAD FRIEND ZOE – Review by Nadine Whitney
“Think very seriously about what living in the past is worth.”
Kyle Hausmann-Stokes the director and one of the writers of My Dead Friend Zoe is himself an army veteran and has based the film on his, and other people’s, experiences with PTSD and survivor’s guilt. A sobering coda to the work proves that the wars conducted overseas are responsible for fewer fatalities than the extended war that continues when veterans return home and are unable to adjust to civilian living. Sonequa Martin-Green plays Merit Charles, an army specialist whose army buddy Zoe Ramirez (Natalie Morales) is dead and refuses to set Merit free from guilt over her loss.
The film begins in Afghanistan in 2016. Zoe and Merit are mechanical specialists dealing with not only the pressures of war but also the sexism inherent in the forces. They find refuge in each other with Zoe’s boisterous personality providing a kind of shelter for Merit’s more reserved attitude. Their friendship seems like an unbreakable bond but there’s something dark in Zoe’s past that keeps her from wanting to return Stateside. “Can you promise we don’t get fucked up in the head. If you ever find me in a PTSD group of whatever you have permission to kill me,” Zoe says to Merit. And in the next scene that’s precisely where Merit is with Zoe’s ‘ghost’ telling her that everything she’s hearing is bullshit.
Merit is undergoing court mandated counselling in a group led by Dr Cole (Morgan Freeman). Cole tells her that he won’t sign her papers unless she does some work and contributes to her own therapy. It’s therapy or jail, and Merit seems to be choosing jail over opening up about what triggered her negligent breakdown in her factory warehouse job. Merit can talk about why she joined the army – the feeling of pride she felt watching her grandfather, Dale (Ed Harris) stand up as a person who served his country and how she wanted to be part of the group of people who did something valuable. Merit won’t talk about the darkness, and Zoe is ensuring she keeps quiet too.
Merit’s life takes a turn when her absent mother Kris (Gloria Ruben) tasks her to go to Dale’s home and help him adjust to the idea of moving into a care facility because his Alzheimer’s is becoming unmanageable. Dale’s property in Molalla, Oregon is where Merit found comfort as a child, but since her grandmother died and she returned home from the army, she hasn’t been around: something the ornery Dale finds unacceptable. Two generations of veterans are confronting their past. Dale, whose mind is starting to trap him there, and Merit whose mind (Zoe) is also caught in a loop.
Kyle Hausmann-Stokes’ film is a subtle, devastating, and sometimes comic examination of lingering trauma. Everything seems to be falling on Merit’s shoulders to ‘fix’ when she’s incapable of fixing herself. It wasn’t the army necessarily that caused her problems, rather the reintegration back into civilian life after an event kept her riddled with guilt over leaving a buddy behind. Except the buddy, Zoe, won’t stay behind and constantly heckles Merit for both moving on and not moving on. Merit begins to examine wider horizons, including a warm and gentle relationship with Alex (Utkarsh Ambudkar) whose South Asian heritage makes him receptive to Merit’s feelings of ‘outsiderness.’ Wider horizons aren’t easy to see when guilt and a very active and embodied conscience stands in the way and demands Merit either explain herself or keep quiet depending on the situation.
The structure of the film which intersperses Merit and Zoe’s time in Afghanistan with the present slowly reveals why Merit is caught in a spiral. It also reveals how alive and brave Zoe was and why Merit gravitated to her not only because of their shared posting.
Sonequa Martin-Green gives an extraordinary performance as Merit, a veteran whose (unwarranted) shame has kept her depressed and silent for too long. Natalie Morales is once again excellent as the livewire Zoe whose bravado covers up a well of unspeakable pain. Adding to the impeccable performance of professional actors is the inclusion of real veterans who speak of their struggle to communicate what their lives were and are like after serving in the military.
My Dead Friend Zoe is a reminder that war doesn’t end for people once they get home no matter how much they, or general society, want it to. Everything changes and isolation and depression plague veterans for whom readjustment isn’t simple. With powerful and nuanced performances and a script that is devoid of didacticism, My Dead Friend Zoe is an incredibly important and moving piece of cinema.
