My Dead Friend Zoe

Kyle Hausmann-Stokes spent five years in the US Army, served as a paratrooper and convoy commander in Iraq and came home with a Bronze Star. What he brought back with him went into 'My Dead Friend Zoe', his first feature, which grew out of his 2022 short 'Merit x Zoe' and goes looking for laughs in post-traumatic stress, a subject that doesn't hand them out easily.

Merit, played by Sonequa Martin-Green (Michael Burnham in 'Star Trek: Discovery'), was an Army mechanic in Afghanistan. Back home, she still has Zoe (Natalie Morales) at her side: her best friend from the unit, who is dead and whom nobody else can see. After an accident at work, a court orders her into group therapy with other veterans, run by Dr Cole (Morgan Freeman), but every time she's about to open up, Zoe warns her that telling her story could mean losing her.

Then her mother, Kris (Gloria Reuben, Jeanie Boulet in 'ER'), asks her to deal with her grandfather. Dale (Ed Harris) is a Vietnam veteran, the reason Merit enlisted in the first place. He lives alone at the family's lake house, he's showing the first signs of Alzheimer's and he wants nobody's help. Merit moves in, Zoe tagging along, and between rows with a man as shut off as she is and an unexpected admirer, Alex (Utkarsh Ambudkar), she has to face what she's spent years avoiding.

The director wrote the screenplay with A. J. Bermudez and dedicated the film to two of his platoon mates, who survived the war and later took their own lives. Apart from Martin-Green, everyone in the therapy group is a real veteran, Freeman included, who served in the Air Force. It was shot in 2023 in Portland, Forest Grove and Molalla, Oregon, and according to Variety it was the first film financed with clean energy tax credits. Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is an executive producer.

It premiered at SXSW on 9 March 2024 and won the Narrative Spotlight audience award, then took audience prizes at Mill Valley and Woodstock too, where the jury also named it best narrative feature. Briarcliff opened it in American cinemas on 28 February 2025 and critics were mostly warm, above all about Martin-Green and Harris, though a few found it rather like a TV movie. In the UK it carries a 15 certificate and can be bought on Prime Video and Apple TV.

• Comedy
• War
• Drama