Your Independent Journal from the Heartland
Experiencing writer/director Kate Beecroft’s “East of Wall,” which won the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award, is akin to an anthropological experience. Although when I was a child, I actually went to the Badlands and Wall, South Dakota (home of what may be the world’s most famous drugstore, as in a clever advertising ploy, billboards announce its looming presence hundreds and even thousands of miles away), the slice of life portrayed in “East of Wall” is a completely foreign culture to this city slicker.
The story and characters in Beecroft’s debut feature are decidedly offbeat and a hybrid of fact and fiction, non-actors and professional thespians. “This was not average filmmaking,” as Beecroft says. The action is centered on a female-centric ranch located east of the town of Wall, where Tabatha Zimiga plays a character with the same name who is a version of herself (as do a number of the film’s other dramatis personae). Described in press notes as a “barrel racer and rodeo girl,” Tabatha is the guiding force for an Amazon-like tribe of mostly teenage and younger girls who train, then often sell, wild horses.
A few males are also on hand, although, curiously, there doesn’t seem to be any romance or hanky-panky taking place at the asexual matriarchy depicted in “East of Wall.” Strangely, the cowgirls are initiated into the tribe with hideous haircuts administered by Tabatha, which she calls either a “warrior cut” or “warrior buzz” – extremely unattractive hairstyles which seem intentionally intended to glam down and desexualize them as the female ranchers emerge into womanhood.
In any case, Tabatha and her equine acolytes are scraping by, barely able to pay the bills to hold onto the ranch. Tabatha and her real-life daughter Porshia Zimiga (you guessed it – that cowgirl plays an onscreen character named Porshia Zimiga!) have an equestrian expertise, shrewdly training their wild stallions, but as the bills pile up to maintain the ranch and feed the tribe of teens living there, the buckeroos are not so clever in dealing with the marketplace when it comes to the selling of their formerly bucking broncos who they have tamed, at sale barns and also, interestingly, on TikTok.
Herein enters the middle-aged businessman Roy, who, according to press notes, “represents big-business, deep-pocket ranchers.” He hails from Texas and is presented as a man of means with an interest in horses. While Tabatha has horse sense, Roy has business sense, and makes a financial proposition to Tabatha. He offers to buy the ranch, but let her stay on there and work her magic on the herd with her cowgirls, who, as said, are highly skilled at breaking and training the steeds. The Texan and South Dakotan enter into an interim agreement on a trial basis.
Unlike the nonprofessional members of the cast, Roy is portrayed by Dallas-born, award-winning thespian Scoot McNairy, who has a passel full of screen credits, including most recently portraying Woody Guthrie in the 2024 Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” McNairy succeeds in imbuing the enigmatic Roy with an aura of mystery. Does Roy have something up his sleeve? What are his real intentions? Is he wooing Tabatha?
Roy takes special interest in Porshia, an astonishing horseback rider and trainer though still an adolescent. The moneybags purchases a fancy pair of red boots for her, and it’s mentioned in passing that somewhere along the line, Roy lost his daughter. (Loss is a recurring theme in “East of Wall”; Tabatha mourns the suicide of her husband or male partner John, who had been the ranch’s owner.) Is Roy seeking to “replace” his daughter with Porshia? Or is he sexually obsessed with the girl, who is at least 35 years younger than him? Inquiring minds want to know!
Alas, “East of Wall” never makes Roy’s intentions clear. Interestingly, in this film loosely based on Tabatha and her real ranch, where Beecroft says she lived “for about three years,” according to press notes Roy is a completely fictitious character. Perhaps because Beecroft, who previously had been mainly an actress, has never written or directed a full-length movie before, her storytelling is murky and unclear. Indeed, “East of Wall” seems like several distinctly different disjointed stories that are loosely strung together, and the holes in its plot are unsatisfying. As Beecroft points out, “It’s a tricky thing blending truth and fiction.”
However, “East of Wall” does have some sumptuous cinematography of the Wild West and breathtaking “horsing around” shot by Austin Shelton. The professionals in the cast are joined by British actress Jennifer Ehle, who earned two BAFTA Awards, including for portraying Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 UK miniseries “Pride and Prejudice.” Ehle plays Tabatha’s mom Tracey; the real Tracey Osmotherly also appears in the movie as Janette, who’s part of a circle of older women on the periphery of the ranch in this multi-generational picture.
The female-oriented “East of Wall” isn’t “feminist” per se, but more of a pro-“Grrrl Power” story. It depicts what press notes call “the New West,” and in doing so, took this Angeleno on a walk to the wild side, revealing a way of life I’ve never experienced before, which is probably the best thing about this unusual movie. As Monty Python put it: “And now, for something completely different.”
East of Wall was released in select theaters Aug. 15.
Ed Rampell is a film historian and critic based in Los Angeles. Rampell is the author of “Progressive Hollywood, A People’s Film History of the United States” and he co-authored “The Hawaii Movie and Television Book,” now in its third edition. His new novel is “The Disinherited: Blood Blalahs.” This first appeared at hollywoodprogressive.com.
