“East of Wall” is a quiet movie that features characters rarely seen on screen but have much to say. The two leads are portraying undisguised versions of themselves; Tabitha and Porshia Zimiga play mother and daughter Tabitha and Porshia Zimiga. The line between reality and fiction are blurred in this quasi-cinema verité version of their lives with a small plot laid in over the day to day of their existence. Almost accidentally stumbling on this small town in South Dakota, writer/director Kate Beecroft was inspired to create a story around these ladies who live a life of one foot in front of the other. Not heroines for anything extraordinary that they’ve done but for the extraordinary way they live the life they’ve chosen, over and above the hand they’ve been dealt. “East of Wall” is a story of survival, kindness, encouragement and appreciating the bleak badlands of South Dakota.
Brynn. Photo Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classic
Tabitha takes care of a very large plot of land on which she raises children and horses. Her husband has died and she’s been left with her preschooler Stetson and resentful teenage daughter Porshia and little more than the renegade horses she trains for future sale. It is unclear whether their trailer belongs to Tabitha or Tracy, her ever present mother, a woman who is never more than inches away from a cigarette and a glass of cheap whiskey. Tracy admits that she would never have been nominated for mother of the year and Tabitha’s many missteps in life can attest to her shortcomings. But Tabitha has survivor written all over her face and tattooed up and down her body. She has opened the trailer and barn to an often freeflowing group of adolescents, most of whose parents can’t or won’t take care of them..
No one but Tabitha has seen the value in either the stray kids or the equine creatures whose next stop was the glue factory. She pays the rendering cost and anything she gets at auction is profit. She teaches her charges to ride and train the horses. The kids have learned to use TikTok as a selling tool, both for the horses and their own skills. The carrot on the end of Tabitha’s training stick is the rodeo; she teaches them the various skills that are judged at the local fairs that lead up to the sanctioned Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) events that yield medals and belt buckles for the winners. Porshia, a devoted rodeo rider, is on her way to an important buckle.
The ranch is losing money and the upkeep is enormous. The sale of horses at local auctions and on TikTok is nowhere near maintaining the ranch. Into their lives comes Roy, a Texan who has been scouting the horse auctions. These South Dakota bred horses are superior to the ones at home and he can buy low and sell high. It is at one of these auctions that he spies Portia, parading a steed and illustrating how well trained he is. Roy recognizes value when he sees it and approaches both Tabitha and Porshia, letting them know that their horses are too undervalued. He’s willing to help them get more at auction and shows how it’s done. Soon he has been enveloped into Tabitha’s brood.
But what, Tabitha asks, is his endgame? Hitched and unhitched many times, she’s never met a man who didn’t have an agenda. Is the free help he’s giving them going to end up being too expensive? He’s right that they could be doing a lot better and is generous in showing how to improve their results but, as Tabitha suspected, the final invoice will be too high.
While one may be tempted to pigeon hole this film as feminist, it is simply a story about women nurturing other women. Beecroft has embedded herself and us in a trailer on barren land where rough hewn women have chosen their own path. It’s easy to judge a character, in this case a real person, by the size of her trailer and her ample bosom aching to escape the confines of a low cut Tee displaying the massive tattoos covering most of her body. You’d be wrong. Tabitha, with her generosity of spirit and skill, has more class than your average society matron. With all that she doesn’t have, she still gives back. She doesn’t live in a land of plenty; she lives at the poverty line with folks just like her, many of whom are Native Americans. Why don’t they leave? Surely there are greener pastures, or pastures that have some green. But, then again, why should they? They have what they need and Tabitha has single-handedly created a support network for the children who roam the ranch and ride the horses. Can you say as much? Is it Tabitha’s skill with horses that Roy is craving or is it how she’s created family?
Porshia. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics
Using teens she discovered in the area, Beecroft’s young actors all grew up around horses and ride them, train them and compete in rodeos whenever possible. They weren’t acting, they were being. Tracy, Tabitha’s mother, is played by the extraordinary classical actress Jennifer Ehle. She leads with her eyes that show pain, sorrow, disappointment and humor, seemingly all at once. Ehle, known for “Pride and Prejudice” and “1923”, can do anything but her Tracy adds a depth that would otherwise be missing. Scoot McNairy (“A Complete Unknown”) as Roy is the very definition of ambiguity and hope. When watching him, you recognize that he’s searching for the missing piece in his life but you also understand that he, personally, is hampered by his own ambivalence.
Porshia, playing a version of herself, is a veritable cowgirl of indomitable spirit who rides rodeo, trains horses and tags calves. Anger and hope live side by side in her eyes; but ultimately, she’s cut from her mother’s cloth and that fierce Zimiga pride shows through. Tabitha, also playing a version of herself, is a true cowgirl, born in the Badlands. You can tell she’ll never quit and breaking and training horses is her life. The pride and inclusiveness you see on screen is what she’s made of. Beecroft has purposely blurred the lines of reality and fiction by casting these two, but it works. You will ride with them anywhere.
Cinematographer Austin Shelton captured the desolation and beauty of the land, an area he and Beecroft discovered when they were on a cross country journey looking for stories. His camera tells a lot of the tale they found. Beecroft, an LA native and actor who trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, felt the need to expand her horizons with directing. Making something out of nothing is a skill to be cherished. With “East of Wall,” she’s made the invisible visible to us all and challenged us to see the beauty in what we normally dismiss.
Opening August 15 at the Monica Film Center
