Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Spoiler alert! Zoe is dead. But, Natalie Morales plays her throughout My Dead Friend Zoe—never as a ghost, but only either as a memory in flashback, or as a figment of her best friend Merit’s imagination. Sonequa Martin-Green plays Merit as a woman with a very peculiar form of PTSD, who has been court-ordered to attend group therapy for veterans after an incident at work. It’s always clear that Merit feels guilt about Zoe’s death, but the specifics of Zoe’s death are not revealed until nearly the end of the film. It turns out to be a bit of a narrative zag that real-life veterans will likely find unsurprising, as it’s a pervasive problem among veterans.

My Dead Friend Zoe is a film that is both very much veterans-forward, and seems somewhat cautious with its themes and representations. Nearly the entire supporting cast is made up of actors who are also veterans, which is very cool; the end credits feature stills of the actors from the film and then photos of them in uniform. This includes Morgan Freeman, who served in the U.S. Air Force from 1955-1959, ages 18-22. Freeman, who has been a professional actor for over sixty years and remains at the top of his game at age 87, plays Merit’s group therapy facilitator. The other members of the group are all also actor-veterans hired for the parts.

This is a film that pointedly sidesteps politics, instead focusing on what traumatic experiences while serving does to people in the military. Indeed, it is noted to have been “inspired” by the stories of two veteran friends known to director and co-writer Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, himself an Iraq War veteran. The two different friends are shown to have been men, but Hausmann-Stokes makes the compelling choice of making the two friends in this film young women—one a Latina woman (Morales) and one a multiracial Black woman (Martin-Green). Indeed, Ed Harris, a veteran of acting if not of the Armed Forces himself, plays Merit’s grandfather Dale, who is the most significant supporting character in this story.

There is a lot of socioeconomic issues at play between Zoe, who characterizes herself as a person with no familial support to go back to after serving; and Merit, who points herself out as “a Black woman in America” just before Zoe points out that she’s one with a lake house. “I don’t have a lake house,” Merit counters. “My grandpa does.” Hausmann-Stokes seems to be playing a bit with common notions of power and privilege, and subtle ways. Whatever the reason for it, it’s unusual to see a multiracial family like this depicted on film, although aside from the one aforementioned reference, there is nothing discussed regarding the differences of cultural experience between Merit, a young Black woman, and her grandfather, an old White man—who does make a point of contrasting veterans of more recent conflicts being welcomed home after they served in Iraq or Afghanistan with how terribly veterans of the Vietnam War were treated when they came home.

There could be some ambivalence with seeing such a depiction of an old White man inferring that a young Black woman should count her blessings, and My Best Friend Zoe makes no effort to even illustrate how their experiences might be different outside the specific context of being veterans. It’s possible Merit’s grandfather was cast as a White man because so few people of color could have risen to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Vietnam War—though, not impossible: only 5% of Army Officers in Vietnam were Black, but they did exist—the highest-ranking, Roscoe Robinson Jr., having been the first African American to become a four-star general. How many of them might still be around today is perhaps a more challenging question, especially considering the number of them to reach the rank of Lieutenant Colonel or higher amounted to merely a handful.

None of these considerations detract at all from Harris’s performance, which is great as Dale, Merit’s grandfather who is diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s. If anything, it’s kind of a bummer to see Harris, like so many older actors, getting relegated to roles like a grandpa with dementia. On the up side, Dale is just as multi-dimensional a character as Merit, a character written well enough to make playing the part worth the effort.

Zoe, as a character, is easily the most complex, and is also fleshed out impressively well, although I would have liked more detail in her backstory. In My Dead Friend Zoe, Zoe exists half the time as her actual self, and the other half as a projection in Merit’s mind. Hausmann-Stoles skillfully illustrates how, in the latter case, Zoe is actually an extension of Merit, and her guilt, however unfounded it might be. Merit blames herself, even though what actually happened to Zoe is not quite what the story leads us to believe for most of the time it’s being told. She’ll say things that Merit fears are how Zoe would feel, but we get to know Zoe well enough to know her better than that.

Merit is a woman dealing with far more than she should have to: the loss of her best friend; the resulting distraction at her job that ultimately got her court-ordered to therapy; the just-discovered dementia in her beloved grandfather. The one positive, which is a welcome subplot, is a barely-budding romance with Alex, the man taking over the assisted living facility previously run by his parents. Alex is played with warmth and compassion—and a dash of snark—by Utkarsh Ambudkar.

There is a bit more I would have liked out of My Dead Friend Zoe, but it has a unique twist on a well-worn premise, and winning performances all around. Its pointed message of supporting the needs of veterans who have given so much to this country, especially in ways the rest of us can barely imagine, is well taken. This film puts its money where its mouth is in ways few others do, offering resources for how to offer that support beyond just seeing the movie, which is still worth the time on its own merits.

*A haunting of a different sort, courtesy of Zoe and Merit.*

Overall: B+