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I’ve had my eye on the PTSD-centric dramedy My Dead Friend Zoe for a while. Some critics I follow caught the movie at its festival premiere last year, and they loved it. They couldn’t wait for more people to see this film, so naturally, I began counting down the days until its wide theatrical release. I bought a ticket for opening weekend as soon as I got the chance, and now that I’ve finally seen the movie, I’m happy to report that it totally lives up to the hype.
My Dead Friend Zoe was directed and co-written by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, and it stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Morgan Freeman, and Ed Harris. In the film, Merit and Zoe were best friends in the army, and now that they’ve returned home, their friendship is as strong as ever…well, sort of. Zoe is actually dead, but Merit still sees her everywhere she goes. These visions are a manifestation of the woman’s PTSD, and they prevent her from leading a healthy civilian life. Unfortunately, she refuses to talk to anybody about it, but that begins to change when her grandfather, also a veteran, gets diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Merit becomes the man’s caretaker, and that family connection, along with a budding romance, gives her the strength to finally open up about her struggles. From that plot synopsis, you might surmise that My Dead Friend Zoe packs quite the emotional punch, and you’d be right. In fact, it hits even harder than the already weighty premise suggests, but I can’t tell you why without spoiling the movie’s ending. This is seriously one of the most hard-hitting films I’ve seen in a while, and that power starts with the stellar characters and the amazing performers who bring them to life. Let’s go through the main cast one by one. To begin, Morgan Freeman plays the head of Merit’s veterans’ support group, and he’s just as good as you’d expect. This guy seems to play the same character in every movie, but somehow, he makes it work. He just has a velvety smooth, almost hypnotic quality that makes it impossible to look away whenever he’s on screen, and that magnetism is on full display here. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Ed Harris plays Merit’s grandfather as a cantankerous and stubborn old man who refuses to accept that he can’t live on his own anymore, and while his performance is very different from Freeman’s, it’s just as good. He even brought back memories of my own thick-headed grandfathers, so despite the character’s abrasive demeanor, Harris imbued him with a familiarity that won me over instantly. Next, we have to talk about Utkarsh Ambudkar. He plays Merit’s love interest, a retirement home manager named Alex, and he’s incredibly charismatic. Ambudkar imbues the character with a charming playfulness that’s an absolute joy to watch, and his interactions with lead star Sonequa Martin-Green are tinged with just enough awkwardness that you totally buy their mutual attraction as well as their nervousness at this new venture. And speaking of Sonequa Martin-Green, she’s quite possibly the best thing about My Dead Friend Zoe. Everything about this woman, from her speech to her facial expressions, carries the weight of the trauma she’s experienced, so after a while, you can almost feel her pain yourself. On top of that, her chemistry with Natalie Morales, the actress who plays Zoe, is off the charts. You’ll have no trouble believing that these women are best friends, so whenever they’re on screen together, you’ll be sure to get a kick out of their lighthearted banter. In fact, Zoe’s sarcastic comments to her living friend are the main source of humor in My Dead Friend Zoe. Since she’s not really there, she’s able to say things no living person could ever get away with, and Morales’s delivery is pitch-perfect. To be fair, her one-liners never quite made me laugh out loud, but they almost always elicited a silent chuckle that brought a big smile to my face. It’s the kind of comedy that perfectly complements the weighty themes without overpowering them, and trust me, this film needs the comic relief. Like I said, My Dead Friend Zoe gets pretty heavy, and while I can’t spill all the beans, I can say that the story deals with universal human experiences we can all relate to. At its core, this movie is about grief, trauma, and the importance of human connection. Merit is struggling because she lost her best friend, and to cope with the pain, her mind has to recreate that broken connection. What’s more, Merit begins to heal when she starts to let people back into her life, so the message is clear. Sure, My Dead Friend Zoe plays these themes in a military key, so they’re going to resonate more with veterans and current members of the armed forces, but even those of us who’ve never served can see a bit of ourselves in Merit’s story. Almost everyone has lost someone close to them, and if you haven’t yet, you will at some point. It’s just part of life, and we all need someone to lean on when times get tough. That’s the basic message of this movie, but like I said before, there’s a bit more to it than that. There’s a twist here that I don’t think anyone will see coming, and it makes My Dead Friend Zoe a poignant call to action on an important issue that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough. I obviously can’t tell you what that issue is, but I can assure you that it’s one we Catholics can and should get behind. It’s the cherry on top of this amazing cinematic experience, so My Dead Friend Zoe is one of the best films of the year so far. It’s the perfect combination of likable characters, excellent comedy, and weighty themes, so if you’re looking for something that’s just as entertaining as it is meaningful, this is almost certainly the movie for you.
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I’ve been anxiously awaiting The Monkey ever since the film was first announced. It’s based on a short story by my favorite author, Stephen King, and even more importantly, it was made by the guy who wrote and directed last year’s horror hit Longlegs. That movie captured the essence of evil in a way most horror films can only dream of, so when the credits began to roll, I immediately started looking forward to the director’s next project. I obviously had no idea what it would be, but I knew I had to watch it as soon as it hit theaters. That time is finally upon us, and after catching an early screening of the movie, I’m sad to report that it’s incredibly disappointing.
The Monkey was written and directed by Osgood Perkins, and it stars Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, and Colin O'Brien. In the film, two twin boys, Hal and Bill, stumble upon an instrument of pure evil. They find a toy monkey left behind by their father, but as you might be able to guess, this thing isn’t just a toy. It has the power to cause random, Final Destination-esque deaths, and no matter what the brothers do to get rid of it, it always finds its way back to them. On paper, that might sound like an intriguing premise for a horror movie, but a film can’t get by on its premise alone. It has to build an intriguing story around its bare-bones concept, and that’s where The Monkey falls short. This movie is about an hour and forty minutes, and for the first hour or so of its runtime, it doesn’t have much of a discernible plot. It’s basically just a string of deaths caused by the titular monkey, and what little story there is (even in the final forty minutes) feels more like an excuse to showcase these gruesome kills than a worthwhile narrative in its own right. To make matters worse, none of the characters in this film are particularly likable. Few of them stick around long enough to make much of an impression, and the ones that do are as bland and one-dimensional as you’d expect from a story this light on plot. The closest there is to a bright spot is actor Theo James’s performance as the adult versions of Bill and Hal, but even he’s very much a mixed bag. On the one hand, his performance as the socially reclusive Hal is quite good. The guy has an awkward, almost nerdy air about him, so James makes you believe that he really does try to avoid people as much as possible. Unfortunately, that’s all there is to the character, so even though James’s performance is admirable, Hal still ends up being as flat as everyone else. In contrast, Bill is a complete trainwreck. He’s just as uninteresting as his monotonous brother, but this time, we don’t even get a good performance. He feels more like a caricature than a real person, so whenever he was on screen, I simply couldn’t take the movie seriously. On top of those boring characters, The Monkey also features some pitch-black humor. The deaths and their surrounding circumstances are often played for laughs, and if you don’t enjoy this kind of comedy, you’re probably going to be very uncomfortable for most of the film. Personally, I enjoy dark humor, so I got a few good chuckles from these gags, but only a few. Most of them simply fell flat in my eyes, so while a number of people in my theater laughed out loud at almost all the jokes, I mostly just sat there with a disappointed look on my face. Next, we have to talk about the horror in The Monkey. If you’re familiar with Osgood Perkins, or even if you just saw Longlegs, you’re probably expecting this movie to be an intensely atmospheric slow burn, but that’s not at all the case. Sure, the filmmaker’s characteristic atmosphere pops up every now and again, but it never stays for very long. It’s just there for a few brief shots, and then it disappears. Instead, this film takes a much more slasher-esque approach to its horror. Like a typical slice-and-dice flick, this one is all about the kills. It revels in dispatching its victims in gruesome and creative ways, and it expects the audience to enjoy this kind of low-brow horror as well. To be fair, I’m not completely against this brand of terror. As I said in my Heart Eyes review, I’m generally not big on slashers, but there are a number of exceptions (including Heart Eyes itself!). I just don’t like slashers that are all about the kills. I need something more–like an intriguing story, likable characters, or knee-slapping comedy–but The Monkey doesn’t have any of that. The horror is the only thing this movie does well, but unfortunately, it’s not the kind of horror I typically enjoy on its own. Last but not least, I want to talk about the message of The Monkey. Given my problems with the film, you might not expect it to have any sort of deeper meaning, but it actually does. The randomness and unfairness of the toy monkey’s kills is supposed to be an allegory for the way death operates in the real world, and if you ask me, it’s pretty spot-on. Sure, we Catholics believe that God can bring good out of even the greatest of tragedies, but that doesn’t mean he actually causes these tragedies. He simply uses them the way a master painter can incorporate stray marks into a beautiful picture, but on their own, they really are random and unfair. There’s a reason the Hail Holy Queen calls this life a “valley of tears,” and on a thematic level, The Monkey absolutely nails that uncomfortable truth. But a good message can’t salvage a bad movie, so at the end of the day, I have to say that The Monkey left me sorely disappointed. It was one of my most anticipated films of the year, but its overemphasis on creative deaths, to the detriment of the characters and the story, makes for one of the most unsatisfying cinematic experiences of the year so far. If you’ve never seen the first two Paddington movies, do yourself a favor and give them a watch. They’re truly some of the most charming and heartwarming films ever made, so naturally, Paddington in Peru was high on my most-anticipated list coming into 2025. It had the chance to cap off one of the greatest cinematic trilogies of all time, and I couldn’t wait to see if it would deliver. I bought a ticket for opening weekend as soon as I got the chance, and when the time finally came for my screening, I was way more excited than you’d ever expect a man in his 30s to be for a movie about an animated bear.
Paddington in Peru was directed by Dougal Wilson, and it stars Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, Madeleine Harris, Samuel Joslin, Carla Tous, Olivia Colman, Antonio Banderas, and the voice of Ben Whishaw. In the film, Paddington and the Browns take a family trip to Peru to visit Paddington’s elderly Aunt Lucy, but when they arrive at her retirement home, they receive terrible news. Lucy has gone missing, and the nuns who run the place have no idea where she went. All they know is that she seemed to be conducting some intense research before her disappearance, so they surmise that the elderly bear has gone looking for something. Upon hearing all this, Paddington and the Browns decide to head deep into the Amazon to find Lucy, and their journey leads them to an unexpected discovery. I’m not going to bury the lead. Like the previous Paddington movies, Paddington in Peru stands or falls largely on the strength of its characters, and to the surprise of no one, they’re just as delightful as ever. Let’s start with Paddington himself. The titular bear has always been the standout of this franchise, and he’s lost none of the irresistible charm that made his first two big-screen outings so great. Actor Ben Whishaw somehow manages to voice this character in the most wholesome way imaginable, so whenever you hear Paddington speak, it’s like taking in a large bowl of chicken soup for the soul. It's sure to melt even the hardest of hearts, and the knee-slapping shenanigans this bear gets himself into will endear him to you even more. He's pretty much a perfect protagonist, so if you ask me, his presence alone is enough to make Paddington in Peru a fun time at the theater. Thankfully though, this film doesn’t rely solely on its ursine lead. His supporting cast is awesome as well, and I have to mention two characters in particular. First up, we have Henry Brown. He’s the father of the Brown family, and as always, actor Hugh Bonneville is fantastic in the role. He imbues the character with just enough of the typical “stupid dad” trope to be funny, but he never comes across as a genuine idiot. You can clearly tell that he’s a loving, competent father, so he perfectly complements Paddington’s edifying vibe. In contrast, his wife, Mary, doesn’t provide much comic relief, but she more than makes up for it by being the emotional core of the Brown clan. She embodies Pope Pius XII’s teaching that the woman holds “the chief place in love” in a family (Casti Connubii 27), and actress Emily Mortimer brings her to life brilliantly. I’m not going to lie, I was actually a bit worried about this character. In the first two Paddington movies, Mary was played by Sally Hawkins, and I wasn’t sure how a new actress would do in the role. But thankfully, that fear ended up being completely unfounded. Mortimer imbues Mary with the same lovable heart and charisma that Hawkins brought the first two times, so if I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t have even noticed the change. On top of those great characters, Paddington in Peru also features an awesome message about the value of family. I can’t get into specifics without spoiling the film, but suffice it to say that the final act will warm your heart as only a Paddington movie can. Not only does the titular bear find way more than he expected, but some of the other characters also learn an important lesson about what truly matters in life, so this movie is just as edifying as it is entertaining. All that being said, I have to acknowledge that Paddington in Peru isn’t quite perfect. In fact, if I’m being honest, I think this is probably the weakest film in the franchise. The story just isn’t as good as the other movies, so it doesn’t quite run on all cylinders the way those first two films do. It has a couple of brief lulls here and there, but as I’m sure you can guess, those minor flaws aren’t anywhere near bad enough to ruin the experience. They’re little more than glorified nitpicks, so at the end of the day, I’m happy to report that Paddington in Peru is a worthy entry in this already storied series. It has all the heart, humor, and charm we’ve come to expect from a Paddington movie, so if you’re a fan of the franchise, I think you’re going to love this latest entry. Even if you’re not already a Paddington aficionado, I suggest giving this film a shot anyway. It’s that good, and you don’t need to see the previous movies to understand what’s going on in this one. |
Jp Nunezis a longtime film buff and theology nerd with master's degrees in theology and philosophy from Franciscan University of Steubenville. His favorite movie genres are horror, superheroes, and giant monsters. Archives
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