Watching My Zoe is a hard movie to watch for anyone who has been in a corrosive marriage, tried to get out of it fighting for every inch of the way out. It is also about the sudden loss of a child in that situation. There are bad marriages that produce a constant and tolerable degree of pain, one gets used to it and develops a carapace - there might never be enough impetus to leave. Isabelle is not in a such a marriage so she has no option but to leave. Her ex is one of those who makes her miserable in marriage and can't stand the thought of her having escaped to a better life.
This is also a story about how a couple that is no longer in love have no way to support each other when they lose a child. So they suffer in their own private hell though the pain is one and the same. They forge their own path to recovery which could lead them to very different places over time. The sadness in this movie build layer upon layer, fold upon fold and you experience a sense of drowning in it that stays to the very end. Isabelle has triumphed and she has her Zoe as she wanted and yet there is a terrible lack of closure for all concerned.
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