“Saving Zoe” Review by Melissa Sloter
July 21, 2019 8:26 am |
Leaning on the success of the beautiful dead girl stories that came before, Saving Zoë, in the vein of Twin Peaks, The Killing, and even Veronica Mars offers a look into the private and dangerous life of Zoë (Vanessa Marano). Zoë was, as described by another young woman who knew her, the most perfect person. Or was she? After Zoë’s unsatisfyingly solved murder, her sister Echo (Laura Marano) reads her journal detailing the months leading up to her death and discovers that her perfect sister was leading a secret life full of sex, drugs, and desperation for a modeling career.
Saving Zoë, directed by Jeffrey G. Hunt, takes us through Echo’s exploration of her sister’s life with a mixture of past and present. Echo reads from Zoë’s journal and the film takes us into Zoë’s perspective showing events in such a way that makes the audience question – what’s really going on here? Unlike in some dead girl stories, we do get Zoë’s perspective of events but the film, based on the novel of the same name by Alyson Noel, sticks close to the formula throughout.
**This review contains spoilers from this point on.**
The first third of the film works to set up Zoë and Marc’s relationship as a perfect romance. They meet cute at a party, he takes her in his car to apply to jobs, she uses an adorable line to kiss him, and even though he’s in recovery he takes care of her without judgement when she’s done too many drugs. In recovery you say? Doesn’t that mean Marc is drug addict himself? Then we find out Marc keeps a gun in his car and his ex-girlfriend filed a restraining order against him. While the seeds of suspicion are planted early on nothing actually comes of this. Marc really is the decent guy Zoë believed him to be, aiding in Echo’s rescue at the end of the film. Other than vague plot intrigue it’s unclear why the film includes these dubious details as no conclusion or moral comes of them by the end. The audience never even really believes Marc harmed Zoë.
As the film plays out it becomes clear where it is going. The reveals mount; Zoë’s killer claimed to be a photographer, Carley blames herself but “had no idea what he would do with the video”, Jason and his friend keep a bed with shackles and a camera pointed at it as a “workspace”. The culmination of these reveals is Echo seeing a video of Zoë chained to Jason’s basement bed being reassured by Carley while she is raped. As if that’s not bad enough, Jason posted the video to his “exclusive site” and someone took a liking to Zoë so he essentially sold her to him under the pretense of a professional photoshoot. In the end, Jason and his friend are arrested and will face the justice system but this film does nothing to justify the rape scene. The reveal that Jason lured Zoë to her death with the promise of something good happening out of the trauma of being raped and her murder itself is basically glossed over. For good measure, Carley also justifies Zoë’s rape while drugged because Zoë took the drugs of her own free will. The film doesn’t make it a point to say this so I’ll say it, consent to drugs does not equal consent to sex and consent to sex cannot be given while under the influence of drugs.
There are some bright moments in this film in the form of Echo’s friends, Abby (Anne Jacob) and Parker (Michael Provost). Abby is your typical high school girl focused on typical high school problems – mainly boys. Her story culminates with the reveal that the boy she’s been pining for the whole film has liked her since sixth grade. Parker, the boy Echo likes, ends up being the one to rush into Jason’s basement and save Zoë after gathering Marc to come to her rescue. Echo even uses Zoë’s line learned from her diary to surprise Parker with a kiss.
There is something uniquely enjoyable about watching sisters portray sisters and their bond shines off the screen in the poignant moments they share in the film. Slowly watching Echo transform into Zoë as she investigates her death is a worthwhile conceit I only wish the film’s plot itself was worthy of it.
PCL Rating: Low Taste It
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: ROTTEN
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Tags: Jeffrey G. Hunt, Laura Marano, Melissa Sloter, pop culture leftovers, Saving Zoe, Saving Zoe 2019, Saving Zoe Movie Review, Vanessa Marano
Categorised in: Movie Reviews
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