"The military doesn't own PTSD, but we are the best at it," says Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green), an Army veteran. The wounds of trauma are difficult to heal. Emotional pain is easier to manage when you can dismiss it, silence it, or have it play out as a smart-aleck dead friend. 

 

Director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes's My Dead Friend Zoe is a beautiful, personal film about friendship, loss, and survivor's guilt. Strangely enough, it also has a bleak sense of humor, a veteran's humor, almost until the end. It is a powerful and heavy film filled with deep feelings. It is very good.

 

The movie is based on real experiences that director/veteran Hausmann-Stokes parlays into an accessible lens into the world of military members grappling with their trauma. But it is much more than just a military movie; the film's brilliance comes more from Hausmann-Stokes' direction and a series of genuinely inspired performances. 

 

For this reason, the effectiveness of My Dead Friend Zoe is not all diminished if you have not served in the military. The story it tells is still ubiquitous, and the gradual reveal of information is plotted perfectly. The film doesn't depend on a shock ending for its impact.

 

With the war on terror spilling over into decades of length, most viewers are likely adjacent enough to be informed of U.S. military operations in Iraq and, in this case, Afghanistan. And more to the point, they're familiar with battle wounds that follow troops home from these combat zones. 

 

We meet Merit, an Army veteran who was court-ordered to group therapy with other veterans led by Dr. Cole (Morgan Freeman). He won't sign her paperwork if she doesn't talk in the group. He pushes her because she needs it, challenging Merit by asking “what living in the past is worth?” We identify with Merit, sharing her inability to express her pain stemming from a traumatic moment. But we also get introduced to her dead friend Zoe (Natalie Morales). 

 

The pair were deployed together, and Zoe is no longer alive for reasons we are unsure of. She only exists as a sardonic projection in Merit's head. We expect to find the reason Zoe is dead early in the film. We do not.

 

Hausmann-Stokes doesn't work this way. He wisely sidesteps common female veteran stereotypes. He gives the audience a great deal of information throughout the story, and by the time the movie's halfway over, we're pretty sure what happened. The conclusion works not because it is a surprise but because it is horrifyingly inevitable. Cathartically, Merit finally comes to peace and resolution. 

 

This is why the movie is so good. The characters and the story transcend the plot. In most military dramas, the characters are at the mercy of the plot. In this one, they emerge as human beings actually doing things. 

 

A great deal of credit for this achievement must go to the performances of Martin-Green and Morales. Merit’s avoidant behavior is exacerbated by Zoe’s lingering pessimism, their dynamic could effectively work as a two-hander stage play. Interestingly, the strongest performance of "Zoe" actually goes to Ed Harris. He plays Martin-Green's grandfather, Dale, a retired Army Vietnam Veteran suffering from early stages of Alzheimer's disease. 

 

Due to Dale's increasing wandering episodes, Merit is tasked with caring for her grandfather at the family lake house. She plans to set Dale up at an assisted-living facility behind his back. She strikes up a romance with the facility's manager; they go on a date that starts with strong chemistry but ends harshly with Merit letting her PTSD slip.

 

The heavy lifting on Martin-Green's shoulders is delivered effortlessly. We believe she is capable of a romantic connection. Her communication with Dr. Cole carries genuine hope masked in fear. We believe her friendship with Zoe as two women who care for each other as genuine sisters-in-arms. One of the highlights of the film occurs at the textbook "one-hour-pivot". Merit and Dale share a pontoon boat ride, exchanging their generational opinions on service and the scars of war. This is the best scene in the film. Hausmann-Stokes has drawn a memorable performance from Ed Harris as the surly, deteriorating grandfather; he is trying to remember while Merit is trying to forget. 

 

The best thing that can be said about the film, I think, is that it works. Hausmann-Stokes has translated a most difficult, personal experience into something believable. The film graciously ends with a call to action for veterans, but I won't reveal the context. This story represents the essence and power of film. Movies are an engine for empathy, and My Dead Friend Zoe pushes us right up to the end.