{"id":11205,"date":"2025-02-22T18:31:23","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T23:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=11205"},"modified":"2025-03-09T18:55:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-09T22:55:31","slug":"my-dead-friend-zoe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/02\/22\/my-dead-friend-zoe\/","title":{"rendered":"My Dead Friend Zoe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"My Dead Friend Zoe<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Briarcliff\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, thematic elements)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Kyle Hausmann-Stokes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kyle Hausmann-Stokes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Dan Romer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Matt Sakatani Roe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 28, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Gloria Reuben, Utkarsh Ambudkar.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0And now a peek inside the mind of Movie Guy 24\/7. Be warned, it\u2019s a scary place. When I first heard the title My Dead Friend Zoe<\/strong>, it sounded to me like a quirky comedy-horror about a high school misfit (female) whose best friend dies and comes back as a zombie. I was thinking Lisa Frankenstein and My Boyfriend\u2019s Back. That\u2019s NOT what it is. It\u2019s actually a serious drama about PTSD and guilt. Boy, did I get that one wrong!<\/p>\n

\u00a0This past Monday, I attended an AMC Screen Unseen event. For those not in the know, it\u2019s a special showing of an unknown upcoming film. Audiences aren\u2019t told in advance what movie they\u2019ll be seeing. The only info given is the MPA rating so they\u2019ll know if it\u2019s okay to bring kids or teens. If you do a little research, you might be able to find an approximate run time. Nobody, not even theater staff, knows what the feature will be until it actually starts. It\u2019s a fun little thing to do on a dull weeknight. Some of us regulars try to guess what we\u2019ll be seeing. A lot of us thought we\u2019d be seeing the British action movie Cleaner, a Die Hard clone starring Daisy Ridley and Clive Owen. The run time for the R-rated actioner was a close match. Nobody was prepared for what it actually was, the significantly heavier drama My Dead Friend Zoe<\/strong>. We all watched in stunned silence.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Writer-director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes describes My Dead Friend Zoe<\/strong> as a \u201cdark comedy\u201d in the intro that preceded the film. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s just me, but I didn\u2019t see the comedy in it. I guess it really is a subjective thing. In any event, it\u2019s inspired by the Army vet\u2019s own experiences in Iraq. The main character is Merit (Green, The Walking Dead), a former Army mechanic suffering from PTSD. It weighs heavily on her. She\u2019s pretty much alienated everybody in her life except her best friend\/fellow soldier Zoe (Morales, No Hard Feelings) and she\u2019s dead or, if you prefer, physically dead but alive in spirit. Zoe is always with her, serving as a constant reminder of Merit\u2019s pain and guilt. She\u2019s the reason why Merit won\u2019t open up at her court-ordered support group run by Dr. Cole (Freeman, The Shawshank Redemption). He refuses to sign her paperwork until she shares which she can\u2019t\/won\u2019t because Zoe is holding her back emotionally.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As if she doesn\u2019t already have enough problems, Merit\u2019s mother (Reuben, Lincoln) calls and tells her she needs to help out with her grandfather Dale (Harris, The Truman Show). A Vietnam vet, he\u2019s in the early stages of Alzheimer\u2019s. Mom wants Merit to aid her in moving him from his beautiful lake house to a healthcare facility. This entails selling the house which he would never go for so they have to hide what they\u2019re doing from him.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While staying at her granddad\u2019s place, Merit goes for a morning jog and finds herself in the local cemetery where she meets Alex (Ambudkar, Ghosts). He\u2019s cutting the grass around the gravestones even though he doesn\u2019t work there. He actually works at the facility where Merit\u2019s mom is looking to place Dale. Merit starts a tentative relationship with him, but it\u2019s hampered by her refusal to finally confront and acknowledge what\u2019s going on with her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A lot of the time, it\u2019s the smaller movies that wield the most power. Independent films aren\u2019t bound by the same constraints as major Hollywood productions with their big stars and studio execs more concerned with checking all the boxes than making films that matter. I doubt any of the majors would make a film like My Dead Friend Zoe<\/strong>. It\u2019s too raw and honest for mainstream audiences. It doesn\u2019t so much depict the horrors of war as it does how they affect the soldiers after the fact. Rather than show us horrific images of war and violence, Stokes lets his characters do the talking. The members of the support group, all played by former military, talk about their experiences. Seeing their raw and real emotion increases the emotional impact.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting is superb in My Dead Friend Zoe<\/strong>. Green crushes it as the psychologically damaged Merit. She makes her character\u2019s pain palpable. Her scenes with Morales, whether alive or dead, have a genuine feel. They\u2019re friends, but they come from different backgrounds. Whereas Merit had it pretty good growing up (school, family and money), Zoe\u2019s only option was to enlist. Now that her tour is almost up, she\u2019s scared to return to civilian life because there\u2019s nothing for her out there. She wants to sign on for another tour; Merit tries to convince her to give civilian life a go.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Freeman and Harris are both great in My Dead Friend Zoe<\/strong>. Would you expect anything less from two actors with immeasurable talent? Harris (why doesn\u2019t he have an Oscar yet?) delivers a powerful performance as an ailing Vietnam vet who wants to hold onto his pride a little longer. Oscar winner Freeman is quietly impactful as the firm but sympathetic group leader who genuinely wants Merit to take that difficult first step to recovery.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It may not have been the kind of movie I was expecting, but My Dead Friend Zoe<\/strong> is excellent. My only gripe is that Stokes seems to have taken a cue from Angel Studios by pleading for donations as the end credits rolled. It doesn\u2019t lessen the overall impact of the film; it just comes off as shameless and pandering. Aside from this very small glitch, it\u2019s a film worth checking out.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Dead Friend Zoe (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Briarcliff\/Comedy-Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 98 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, thematic elements)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Kyle Hausmann-Stokes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Kyle Hausmann-Stokes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Dan Romer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Matt Sakatani Roe\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: February 28, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Gloria Reuben, Utkarsh Ambudkar. Rating: *** \u00bd \u00a0And now a peek inside the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11219,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/My-Dead-Friend-Zoe-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11205"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11398,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11205\/revisions\/11398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}