Zoe (2000)

Three runaway girls hijack a car and begin the adventure of a lifetime… Life in a Detroit suburb is closing in on Zoe and her two friends, Sarah and Ally. They decide to skip class, skip town and head west following Zoe's obsession over her Native American heritage. The girls cross paths with the English woman Cecilia who's totally out of place on a mission to fulfill her mothers last request: to have her ashes scattered in a mysterious location in New Mexico. Zoe realizes that destiny has brought them together and the two embark upon a spiritual journey. Zoe comes quickly of age after getting lost in a daring, solo walk through the blazing desert.

Don't be sucked in like i was

Don't be sucked in like i was.This is NOT a widescreen dvd it is letterboxed. For that reason i give the movie itself 5 stars but the dvd i only give 1 star.
Why not release a PROPER WS dvd instead of this letterboxing garbage? February 22, 2008

Best for the pre-teen or teenaged viewer

I was interested in this movie thinking I might identify with the middle-aged English woman, but it was more focused on the 15 year old girl. It wasn't a bad movie but I think young girls would be a better audience for it than I was. February 18, 2008

A Prayer to the Great Spirit

While this movie is quite an adventure movie for the girls, and for an eccentric London psychologist, at its heart this movie is about the power of prayer. Nothing seemed to be going right in Zoe's life - uncaring parents, kicked out of school, trouble on their trip, etc. It wasn't until she reached New Mexico and met her first real-life American Indian, and was able to talk to him, that she sensed what she needed to do to make sense of her life.

It was common for young men to go out into the wilderness to seek out the will of the Great Spirit - their vision quest. This was often done totally naked, as if the young man was one with Nature. After he comes back to the tribe, he is then considered to be an adult. When Zoe learns of this practice, she disappears into the desert, also totally naked, to seek the Great Spirit and to find the meaning of her troubled life. She spends several days in a state of deep, meditative prayer. Although she almost dies, and her mother again rejects her, she soon realizes that the Great Spirit has answered her prayer. Her life begins anew.

The skill with which the Spiritual message is woven into an adventure, girl-buddy travel movie should be studied by those who purport to make so-called Christian movies. All the previous reviewers of this movie gave it five stars. I think this is because this film subtly addresses the deep human yearning to know one's place on earth, the meaning of life, or that God cares for each and every one of us. While you are enjoying an adventure movie, you are feeling a Spiritual movie. January 17, 2006

EXCELLENT MOVIE!!

Zoe (Vanessa Zima) is a teenage girl growing up in Michigan, where she's grown frustrated with life in the Midwest and is at odds with her mother (Kim Greist), who refuses to break things off with her boyfriend, who often beats her. Zoe wants to find a new direction in her life, and when she learns that one of her ancestors was a Cherokee Indian, she decides to explore her Native American heritage. Two of Zoe's friends, Ally (Victoria Davis) and Sarah (Stephi Lineburg), want to go to California, and since Zoe thinks she can find a spiritual guide in New Mexico, she decides to join them as they steal a car and head west. En route, Zoe makes the acquaintance of Cecelia (Jenny Seagrove), a British woman who is heading out to Navajo territory to scatter the ashes of her late mother, and Zoe believes she's met a mirror-version of herself (albeit a few years older).

This movie is something you will really enjoy very much! This is one of those little known type of movies and when you watch it, you are so glad you did because its made so well! December 7, 2004

What A Treasure!!

There were very few DVD's left at the small video store where I shop on this last 4th of July weekend, and 'Zoe' was one of them. So I thought, "what the heck".
I loved this story! To quote Cecelia in the movie, it is a "secret treasure". Vanessa Zima gives a great performance as an adolescent trying hard to figure out what her place in the world is all about, and with her two friends create a very believable friendship and adventure. She constantly carries with her a page ripped from a National Geographic, and she dreams of possibilities. Jenny Seagrove is perfect as Cecelia, a woman who thinks she has her life in predictable order but finds out that there's more to life than she ever imagined. Both woman and child are destined to share life-changing discoveries about themselves and the world around them and the story is beautiful. If you remember ever feeling like you just wanted your world to change- to somehow right itself, this is a movie you will enjoy.

I doubt that the budget for this was very large, but Deborah Attoinese did a fine job with a touching story and I'm glad that she was able to bring it to film. Only two things I wish for: I wish it was longer! and I wish there was a soundtrack for it. At the very least, I would have liked to get some of the songs by Laurie Webb. However, my search for that so far is elusive. I will keep trying.
And yes, I enjoyed the film so much that I bought the dvd. July 12, 2003

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