My Dead Friend Zoe Blu-ray Review
“My Dead Friend Zoe” is an important, but drawn out film.
Written by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes and A.J. Bermudez (and based on Kyle’s own life experiences as a veteran), “My Dead Friend Zoe” is a comedy-drama revolving around Merit- a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. Merit is struggling to move forward after returning to civilian life. She’s lost in life, she’s ignoring her court appointed counselor Dr. Cole, and she decides to go to Oregon to care for her grandfather Dale (also a veteran) who has Alzheimer’s. Oh, and she keeps seeing her dead friend Zoe (who died in Army service). Merit isn’t confronting her issues and trauma and is instead haunted by them essentially. While in Oregon, she meets a retirement home employee (Alex) whom she develops a relationship with and is also grappling with looking for a retirement home for Dale (unbeknownst to him). Eventually, Merit has to face her own demons too, but will she (or can she)?
“My Dead Friend Zoe” is an important true story based film that tackles heavy duty themes about grief, loss, healing, family, survivor’s guilt, and the life of veterans. As many ideas as the film explores though, director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes struggles to competently tell the story in this overlong and often tedious film. ‘Zoe’ is the type of film that has a perfect set-up with a lot of weighty themes, but it bides its time and lingers on before getting to the conclusion. You’re left wanting more depth and more content in the middle act. It doesn’t ruin the film as this is certainly a story that needs to be told, but it could have been so much more impactful.
Where ‘Zoe’ really shines is with the stacked cast. Sonequa Martin-Green (of “Star Trek: Discovery” fame) really gets an opportunity to flex her acting muscles here in a part that is dramatically different from what we are used to seeing her in. She really does a commendable job as Merit and shows versatility as an actor. Natalie Morales (who plays the titular Zoe) is the comedic aspect of this comedy-drama. She plays off of Martin-Green quite well. Morgan Freeman delivers a quality performance as per usual and Utkarsh Ambudkar is charmingly funny as Alex. The best performance here comes from Ed Harris as Dale, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The man can do no wrong.
Video/Audio:
Presentation: 2.39:1 1080p. How does it look? The Blu-ray contains a sharp hi-def transfer.
Audio Track: 5.1 DTS-HD MA. How does it sound? The 5.1 track is satisfactory.
Extras:
* 2 deleted scenes titled “Bird Feeder” and “Goodwill.”
* Digital copy
* “A Veteran’s Story: The Journey Of MDFZ”- Director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes talks about his own life story.
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