My Dead Friend Zoe Review: Military PTSD Dramedy Elevated by Sonequa Martin-Green
Co-written and directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, who is a US Army combat veteran, My Dead Friend Zoe is inspired by his autobiography, and the film has partnered with national nonprofits to raise awareness about veterans' mental health. The story centers on Martin-Green's character, Merit, a servicemember who returns from the war in Afghanistan with PTSD. Literally haunting her is Natalie Morales's character, Zoe, a fellow servicemember who has died. In addition to reckoning with the circumstances of Zoe's death, Merit must also care for her aging grandfather (Ed Harris) who has been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's Disease.
Sonequa Martin-Green carries My Dead Friend Zoe. As fans of Star Trek: Discovery know, she has an easy smile that also reveals her character's inner life, which is often filled with contradictions and different levels of emotional depth. Martin-Green delivers a performance honed with some deep psychology and background work that's not on the page, which had to have been developed in her preparation. One scene with her grandfather sees her adopt a military posture out of habit even though she's no longer part of the service, and the small moments of reaction shots reveal a full fleshed-out character. It's masterful work that saves the movie from melodrama.
That melodrama risks pushing My Dead Friend Zoe into an 'issue movie,' a film that advocates for an issue rather than unfolding a story organically. This is particularly the case during the third act reveal. The plot's structure hides the circumstances around Zoe's death until the third act, and there are long sections when it feels like the film is being too evasive. What's also true is that the film spins its wheels during the second act because it's biding its time until it can reveal to the audience something all the characters already know. Structurally speaking, this keeps the audience at a distance.
The film's direct advocacy occurs most prominently in post-credits scenes and in statistics right before the credits. It is only Martin-Green that keeps the issue from overwhelming the drama, as she anchors the film to the character's journey and lets the story speak for itself. Morales gives a strong supporting performance, but sadly, she's not given much to do aside from deliver some snarky lines and be a sounding board for Martin-Green's character in the movie's tearful conclusion.
PTSD and more broadly speaking, mental health advocacy is an important issue, and My Dead Friend Zoe makes for some successful advocacy work. However, it is Sonequa Martin-Green who makes it a good movie and a compelling character drama.
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Business Insider
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- Business Insider
Hank Green's 'Focus Friend' unseated ChatGPT on the App Store. I used it to help concentrate while writing this article.
I needed to focus and write this article. Hank Green had just the bean for me. YouTuber Hank Green surprise-dropped his app "Focus Friend," saying in a TikTok that it was "the best idea I ever had." The app's premise is simple: The more time spent off your phone, the longer your virtual bean can knit its scarves and socks. Users can eventually trade in their knitwear for virtual room furniture. Quickly after Green posted about it, "Focus Friend" scaled the App Store, eventually hitting No. 1. It currently sits at No. 3. Green also helped his odds by posting about the app's ascension on his TikTok. Once "Focus Friend" reached the No. 2 position, he called out to his audience: "Everyone stop downloading ChatGPT for just a second, okay?" The app's success highlights Green's influence, having posted to YouTube in various forms since 2007 and amassed over 2.4 million followers (and 8.2 million on TikTok). It's also a sign of the growing popularity of focus-aid tools as people increasingly face notifications, pings, and other screen-based distractions. In an email to Business Insider, Green shared the origin story of "Focus Friend" and its bean companion. To build the app, he worked with developer Bria Sullivan of mobile game studio Honey B Games. "Bria suggested a focus timer and let me sit with that idea for a while. [I] came back to her saying, 'I feel like I need to be responsible to someone besides myself' and pitched the idea of a bean that was 'working on something' inside of your phone," Green wrote. "From there, we iterated together trying to figure out what would be most motivating and balancing that with what it was possible to actually build relatively simply. " What it's like to use 'Focus Friend' As a writer, my job demands long, sustained efforts of productivity with little distraction. But the lure of a quick X scroll or a text-check can be hard to ignore. Could "Focus Friend" help me write this article? I downloaded "Focus Friend" for free and gave it my name. My bean appeared before me — small, smiley, and with a little accent on his backside that appears to be its derrière. The app asked me to name my bean; ever the creative writer, I chose "Mr. Beano." With the brief setup process complete, I was able to start a focus session. The app's calming classical music played in the background. (In a TikTok, Green said that the classical music was made by gaming composer Samantha Van Der Sluis.) As my bean got to knitting, I got to writing. When the 15-minute session ended, I learned of Mr. Beano's haul. He knit 14 socks. The more sessions I endured, the more socks he would bring back. Staring down at my bean's empty room, I thought that it was time to do something decidedly unfocused: go on a shopping spree. With my limited capital, I didn't have enough for a rug or desk for Mr. Beano. A plant would liven up the barren room, though — and would only cost 15 of my hard-earned socks. In his TikToks, Green had a cat-themed companion. I hoped to spruce Mr. Beano up — but all of the alternate bean skins, from coffee to edamame, required payment. While Green's name is in the app's profile — "Focus Friend, by Hank Green" — he is not widely visible within the game. This is no " Kim Kardashian: Hollywood," where users constantly see its celebrity creator. But Green's influence is visible in these skins: Users can pay to be "Hank Bean" or "John Bean," named after Hank's brother, for $5.99 each. Here lies the app's money-making ability. When asked for the price, Green said: "$0. Also, there are no ads. You're welcome." In a since-deleted TikTok, Green said that including ads was antithetical to the app's mission. But there are ample in-app purchase opportunities, including the skins and a $1.99/month "Focus Friend Pro" subscription. Green said the income from in-app purchases will allow him to expand the app's offerings — something he's already working on. "We've been working on new rooms since launch, so that's coming soon," he wrote to Business Insider. "We also want to have a widget that folks can keep on their screen to remind them that there's never a bad time for focus. And, of course, we've got a mix of little features and big launches that we're trying to balance with all of the other work of having a TON of new users! " The app is also framed as "ADHD-friendly" in the App Store, though Green doesn't reference any similar uses in his TikToks. Having become sufficiently unfocused in my exploration of the app, I set another timer. This time, I turned on "Deep Focus" mode, which formally disabled my access to most other phone apps. It was just me and Mr. Beano for the next 15 minutes, no distractions. My bean's knitting session gave me time to dig into the other focus apps on the market. By now, there are dozens; I remember using the similar Pomodoro technique site years back in high school. Apple also allows its users to set screen time limits for individual apps, as well as a " Sleep Focus" mode to tune out distractions. Green explained to me more about why he was interested in focus and attention. "We live in a world where all of the smartest people (and computers) in the world are dedicated to capturing and holding and monetizing our attention," he wrote. "But our attention is all we have, and I think people want some of it back!" With all of these apps, there's a small irony. Focus apps posit that the best way to use our phones less is to download yet another piece of software. Still, I found it helpful. I made good time writing this article, likely thanks to the 15-minute uninterrupted work stretches. My last focus session came to an end. I bought Mr. Beano a hamper.
NBC News
20 hours ago
- NBC News
Scrolling instead of working? YouTuber Hank Green's new app wants to help
Can a smiley cartoon bean help you stay focused? Hank Green, one of the earliest and most influential online creators, hopes so. The longtime YouTuber, known for his educational videos and Vlogbrothers channel, created a productivity app called Focus Friend with the goal of instilling healthy habits. This week, it soared to No. 1 on Apple's top free apps chart, surpassing Google, ChatGPT and Threads. As of Wednesday, it's been downloaded over 100,000 times on the Google Play Store. Focus Friend allows users to set a timer to get a task done, similar to other productivity tools. The app temporarily blocks distractions, like social media, while the timer runs its course. Unlike other apps, Focus Friend assigns users a little bean, which the user can give a name like Bean Diesel, Pinto or Eda (for Edamame). If the user successfully focuses for the timer's duration, the bean is able to finish their knitting project. But if the user picks up their phone in the middle, the bean gets distracted and drops their knitting needles. The more the user focuses, the more socks the bean knits, which can be exchanged for bean room decor. 'It's an app that installs a bean in your phone. And the bean really wants to spend more time knitting,' Green said in a TikTok video on Monday. 'You can focus for an amount of time, and that will let the bean make socks or scarves, and you can trade those socks or scarves in for more furniture in the bean's room.' Focus Friend launched amid an onslaught of AI slop — low quality media generated by artificial intelligence — and a rise in "doomscrolling" (spending excessive time scrolling online). The app is the latest productivity tool to incentivize a healthy relationship with screen time. Focus Friend echoes products like the popular '90s-era Tamagotchi, a handheld video game that allows users to care for a small mythical pet. Finch, another gamified focus app, has also risen in popularity since launching in 2021. It assigns users a customizable bird that grows when they complete self-determined tasks, like cleaning or drinking water. Focus Friend began as a 'passion project' between Green and developer Bria Sullivan, who is behind Honey B Games' Boba Story, which allows players to design their own boba drinks. In January 2024 Sullivan said she met Green over dinner, where they discussed the idea of creating an app that would serve as an alternative way to support creators (besides creator merchandise). Sullivan suggested a focus timer, while Green devised the anthropomorphic bean and its knitting hobby. Sullivan hopes the app can help people reduce their time 'doomscrolling,' a habit she herself also hopes to break out of. 'Especially with social media and things like that, I don't feel like I'm having fun,' Sullivan said. 'I don't feel like I'm an active participant in it.' Green, who many often lovingly describe as 'the internet's dad,' began posting YouTube videos in 2007 with his brother, author John Green. The two went on to launch Crash Course, a YouTube channel that has offered free, high-quality educational videos since 2012. The channel, which has over 16 million subscribers, touches on topics including biology and global history. The brothers also created VidCon, the massive creator and fan conference that's been held annually in Anaheim, California, since 2010. But Hank Green's online fame has also prompted a lot of self-reflection. The creator has been vocal about his own relationship to the internet, including the downsides, telling TechCrunch last year that he's 'been trained by the algorithms and by my colleagues to be extraordinarily good at grabbing and holding people's attention.' 'I hope I use that skill for good, but I also use it for distracting people from whatever else they would be doing,' he told the publication. Now, with Focus Friend, Hank Green is moving toward 'giving people their time back,' he said in his TikTok video Monday. 'It's about letting people be in control of their attention, not selling their attention to someone else.' The app launched in July but only recently picked up traction after the Green brothers began posting more about it on social media, where they have millions of followers. 'We didn't have any idea that it would get this big, nor did we even have the intention for it,' Sullivan said. 'The intention we had behind it was, 'This is an idea I think should exist in the world.'' Some, like TikTok creator Hannah Rae, who goes by hannahsendlessbookshelf on the platform, were immediately hooked. She posted her reaction to the app in a video, calling it a 'cure' to her 'reading slump.' 'It does tend to be easier for the majority of us to do the 'right thing' for something else we want to care for, rather than just doing it for our own benefit in the first place,' Rae said. So far, she said it's helped incentivize her to put her phone down. She said her sister, a teacher, uses it to focus on her lesson planning, and her brother, 11, uses it while doing homework. While the ADHD-friendly app is free to download from the app store, users can pay for different bean avatars, including a ' John Bean ' option resembling Hank's brother. There's also a subscription model where users can knit scarves to trade for elevated decorations. Green's express goal is to avoid burdening users with ads. Focus Friend is 'very much trying to be an ad-free experience because the mobile ad ecosystem kinda blows,' Green wrote in a post on BlueSky. Aside from helping their bean knit a sock or a scarf, Sullivan said she hopes Focus Friends users are 'taking a break from the noise and having a little bit of peace with themselves.'
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Coldplay's Chris Martin addresses viral 'kiss cam' moment, calls it a 'debacle'
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