There was a gritty realism to "Saving Zoë" and a creative set of filmmaking skills on display. The two sisters, Zoë and Echo, really looked like sisters, and indeed they were performed by actresses who are sisters. The film blends the present with the past, and it incorporates the appearances of Zoë in flashbacks and in surreal appearances to her younger sister.

There is good dramatic tension developed among the troubled young people at Lincoln Carter High School. The party scenes were all unpleasant, and the only genuinely supportive relationship developed was that of the sisters.

A creaky plot device to advance the action both forward and backward in time is the diary belonging to Zoë that is being read by Echo and reenacted in scenes leading to her Zoë' murder. The artificiality of the conceit of the diary bogged the film down.

While the director developed a fine ensemble of actors, the film's grim subject matter and the bleak feeling of family and social dysfunction pervaded the action. The parents of the sisters seemed hopelessly mired in themselves with the mother overly medicated and the father a workaholic. The house calls of the psychiatrist seemed forced, artificial, and non-productive.

Young Echo was forced to take matters into her own hands in order to understand what happened to her sister. And the horror of what she discovers in a tawdry basement is ultimately the landscape of a wasteland of shattered human values.

This has to be one of, if not, the worse movie I have attempted to watch this year.

It is awful. Terrible ott attempts at acting and a storyline straight from the bin.

Echo (Laura Marano) is still talking to her sister Zoë (Vanessa Marano) despite her murder a year earlier. Zoë borrowed her boyfriend Marc's car one day and drove off. It's the first day of school and it's awkward for everyone. Her parents are lost. The family goes to therapist Dr. Gallagher (Ken Jeong). When Echo notices Zoë's diary in Marc's car, she smashes the window and steals it. Despite a confession and a conviction, she still has her suspicions. Zoë's hard-partying drunken friend Carly (Giorgia Whigham) lets slip a secret.

This movie fills me with dread and not good dread. It becomes hard to watch at times. Echo intends on the most dangerous course of action. It is unreasonably dangerous. It's hard to root for the lead character when that character is reckless beyond reason. Also, it has a bit too much of Zoë. The problem is that it isn't really a mystery to be solved. Essentially, she is told of her sister's story by the diary and by Carly in expositions. The scheme to get Jason is not well thought out. It's not even a plan as much as a couple of suggestions. The other issue with Zoë is that she's dead. Watching her story in detail is simply waiting for the inevitable. Some of her scenes are unnecessary. Echo frustrates me and fills me with dread.