Cast: Porschia Zimiga, Tabitha Zimiga, Jennifer Ehle, Scoot McNairy, Jesse Horson, Clay Pateneaude

Written and Directed By: Kate Beaucroft

original Score By: Lucas Frank and Daniel Meyer R’Keefe

Studio: Sony Pictures Classics

Release Yeaar: 2025

Runtime: 97 minutes

Audio Description produced By: the Media Access Group as WGBH Studios

Written By:

Narrated By: Emily Hooks

What Is it?: An experimental indie of sorts, which has the director using almost entirely a cast of local South Dakotans playing versions of themselves. A cast of nearly entirely green actors tell a story about a trio of women across generations trying to make ends meat, raising kids that aren’t their own but have nowhere else to go, and embracing that they have a special connection to horses. They use that skill to great effect to train, present, and sell horses to keep their lives afloat, while the darkness of their past brings trauma that if kept bottled up, could sink the family.

What Works: Surprisingly, for a cast of unknowns, they handle the heavy material rather well. This isn’t a reality show. There’s an obvious script, with scenes placed together like any traditional drama. But in an effort to heighten the realism, the casting here is intentional. These women can ride, they don’t need to be taught. They’ve lived in and have experienced the Badlands, and aren’t being flown in from their penthouse apartments in the city, and matched with costume and makeup artists who strive to make them seem folksy. They just are.

So it is that element that is most charming here, as sometimes this type of casting can come across as almost dead when regular people fill in for indies shooting on location on small budgets. And then you have the acting that isn’t ready yet, and feels very community theatre, or that someone did a play in high school… thirty years ago. I get a lot of that out of lower budget films. We’ve stumbled onto something here with this cast.

There’s a scene at the end with Tracy and Tabitha talking about this shared trauma, like they are in a therapy session, and finally being open about the experiences they’ve had, which are not great. There isn’t even a hint that these women didn’t understand the weight of the moment, or the darkness of their characters pasts. they convey perfectly what they need to, and because they are a version of themselves, it feels somehow even more real.

the casting here is the charm, and the director mined some gold in the Badlands.

What Doesn’t Work: I needed more in a few places. the kids, mainly. I had a hard time figuring out how many, or who was an actual kid there through guardianship, and who wasn’t. the kids roam through this film, in and out, and even the most developed don’t really have strong characteristics. A rather large chunk of the story are these kids, and how this farm has become a home away from home. But who are these kids? What do they do? Are they at all different from each other? For a 97 minute movie, you had a solid five minutes easy to flesh them out just a little more. They are not the leads, nor the focus, but a very central point in the story.

which leads me to Jesse. One of the more prominent kids is an older boy, who is almost an adult if he’s looking at repeating the 11th grade, and Tabitha is looking to be his guardian. It doesn’t go as planned, but I also didn’t notice a change because of the negative outcome. he was there before, and he’s still there. This is why fleshing out the kids is a necessity.

And lastly, considering the offer the ladies have to mull from an enterprising businessman (Scoot Mcnairy) who realizes the value of their whole operation, they talk about needing the money, and being poor, but it’s also a film that has no stakes in this angle either. We don’t have scenes with the bank, or some landlord, or even a crime boss they owe money to. They just live paycheck to paycheck like everyone else. That needle needed to be moved a bit, simply because this offer seems to be the whole shebang. even though it is done with the best intentions, and not in a threatening way, the film lacks an inciting incident, or a rise in the action, so this moment seems to be the catalyst of the entire major drama of the story. It would help to know just how much this decision means, or how hard it is to make.

The Audio Description: Having been blessed with the opportunity to encounter this film both without and then with audio description, the difference was a lot. It’s true of damn near every movie where animals are either a key focus, or even a protagonist type character, that we don’t know what they’re doing because they can’t speak. They can’t tell us how they are feeling, what they’re doing, or where they are. Since horses are a major part of the film, it made a huge difference. The women are also capable of doing tricks on the horses,which you miss if you don’t have description. There are other details too, like a thrown coffee mug, a really specific haircut, or someone eavesdropping in a conversation that all brought context. I’m generally appreciative of the work Media Access does, and this is a fine track. I’m glad I held out for it.

You Might Like it If: You like the shows of Taylor Sheridan, or quieter midwestern type shows like Nomadland or even Winter’s Bone.

You Might Not Like it If: You need something to blow up, or you need a male protagonist.

Final thoughts: While East Of wall is far from perfect, it is north of the standard fare we typically get, and features a central trio of ladies delivering performances worth remembering.

Fresh: 7.8/10