Set in South Dakota ranch country, East of Wall immerses itself in the lives of a real-life mother/daughter duo (Tabatha and Porshia Zamiga) whose daily routine centers on horses. Director Kate Beecroft employs a mostly untrained cast to bring authenticity to the language and hardscrabble values of her characters. Actors include Scoot McNairy as a horse trader who recognizes Tabatha’s talent and wants to buy her financially troubled ranch. Jennifer Ehle portrays Tabatha's hard-drinking. no-nonsense mother. Tabatha also provides a home for a group of unruly teenagers, all of whom are attracted to her free-spirited ways. Beecroft's somewhat scattered story touches on suicide, changing Western values and the ways in which sorrow and joy can occupy the same landscape. At times, I wondered whether East of Wall might have worked better as a documentary, but Beecroft blends fiction and non-fictional approaches for a movie that's best when dishing out local flavor — shots of the Badlands are stunning and the environment in which the story takes place feels grounded in reality. Beecroft’s movie represents the kind of independent-minded cinema that results from the passion of a filmmaker who believes in the strength of independent-minded women who live through hardship without shedding too many tears.
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