We Bury the Dead Movie Review

We Bury the Dead (2024)

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Written by: Zak Hilditch
Directed by: Zak Hilditch
Starring: Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith
Rated: R
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Plot
After a catastrophic military disaster, some of the dead reanimate. Ava joins a body retrieval unit, searching for her missing husband.

Verdict
It's a zombie movie that's not really about zombies, focusing on the living left behind and the lack of closure. How do you cope when the future is instantly altered? Initially we think Ava seeks closure, one more look at her husband. Through flashbacks, we see their complicated relationship. When she learns the dead reanimate, she hopes for one last interaction with him; a moment of recognition in his eyes even if his body has deteriorated. Ridley delivers a great performance, but it's a movie about love and loss that adds zombies to set it apart and neither aspect of the story does enough.
It depends.

Review
The preface to the movie is an experimental military weapon in Tasmania that accidentally detonates, killing hundreds of thousands by leaving them brain dead.

Ava (Daisy Ridley) travels to an island as part of a body retrieval unit. Her husband was on the island. While she hopes to find him, seeking a moment of closure, the twist is that some bodies reanimate.

Daisy Ridley plays Ava

There's an inherent sadness to clearing out these houses. Ava is paired with Clay (Brenton Thwaites), and they see all these lives cut short as they move from house to house looking for bodies. That and we're waiting for the moment when we see a body that's reanimated. Soon enough we see a zombie standing in the corner, it's skin grotesquely gray. While it doesn't seem violent, the military isn't taking any chances.

Through flashbacks we see Ava's husband, her wedding, and glimpses of their relationship. He was on the southern area of the island at a resort on a business trip. Their marriage had hit a rough stretch. It seems she's seeking some kind of closure as their last exchange was heated.

While the retrieval unit is relegated to the North of the island due to violence in the south, Ava convinces Clay to take her south. He's found a Ducati motorcycle in a garage, eager to take it for a ride. He agrees more for the sake of the plot than anything else. They find a violent zombie, and a soldier, Riley (Mark Coles Smith), helps them dispatch it. Riley asks why they're in the south alone, but what goes unsaid is that he's a lone soldier. Where is his unit? When he's the one with a gun, you don't get the benefit of asking questions. He wants to write a report and separates them. Later he tells Ava Clay ran away, but his story seems dubious. Not that Ava has much choice but to follow Riley on the promise he'll get her to the resort.

Daisy Ridley plays Ava

Riley may be lonely more than dangerous. He offers to make her dinner, and it's a tense moment. He then asks her to dance while wearing his wife's clothes. They both get to pretend for a moment, forgetting what's going on outside and imagining their past lives.

We're never sure why some dead wake and others don't. One character supposes it's unfinished business. Maybe they would all wake up given enough time. Through this movie, Ava hopes to see her husband one more time. Then she hopes maybe he'll reanimate and she can at least see a facsimile. Maybe she'll see a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. She just wants one more moment, a chance to erase the fact that the last time she saw him they were arguing.

I would have liked the movie more if it ended one scene earlier.

SPOILERS

While Ava finds her husband, he didn't reanimate. It's not what she had hoped, but it is closure. I'd have preferred the movie end there with Ava creating a funeral pyre for him. Instead we get one more scene. Ava finds Riley's wife again, having earlier discovered she had reanimated and Riley kept her imprisoned. She had a baby that wasn't a zombie, and the movie ends with Ava picking up the baby. It would have been a stronger ending without this scene.

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