This unusual buddy dramedy tells a surprisingly effective veteran story. In it Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green) who served in the army in Afghanistan is still intimately connected with her fellow soldier bestie Zoe (Natalie Morales), even though Zoe has been dead for some time (we don’t really know how long.) Merit is back in civilian life but isn’t really thriving thanks to Zoe’s constant presence and interference, plus she’s in court ordered counseling in a PTSD group led by a VA counselor (Morgan Freeman). And he’s losing patience with her because she can’t bring herself to open up about what is going on with her, even though she risks going to jail if she doesn’t. And then, on top of it all, her grandfather (Ed Harris) who she hasn’t seen is a while starts exhibiting signs of dementia, and she’s the only one around to help out with his care.
Wherever she goes Merit has Zoe in tow, wise-cracking and looking over her shoulder. At first it is kind of funny. But it becomes clear that Zoe is keeping Merit from living her life and through flashbacks we learn the story of their relationship and why Zoe is still there.
And meanwhile Merit gets a call from her mother who is out of town that her dad is wandering and is losing it, and Merit needs to take care of getting him into a home. Granddad is played by the always watchable Ed Harris, who is an army veteran himself and is not going into a home without a fight. The initially contentious relationship between grandfather and granddaughter develops over the course of the film. He has his version of how a soldier deals with trauma, and she has her own, but by the end, they’re there for each other.
It’s a very different look at PTSD and the trauma that soldiers who come home from war confront and how each of them deal with it. There are not a lot of films that deal with women and PTSD, and Martin-Green turns in a beautiful performance depicting a young woman keeping her pain at bay by pretending her own traumatic event did not happen. She is a young actress to watch. Directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes (an Army veteran himself), the film is dedicated to a couple of his platoon mates who killed themselves. It’s not your usual film about war and its aftermath and I recommend it.
In theaters now.