‘East of Wall’ Review: A Gentle, Deeply Human Tale of Horses and Healing

Before winning an Oscar for Nomadland, stumbling through a troubled attempt at superhero filmmaking with Eternals, and now steering toward prestige literary adaptation with Hamnet, Chinese-American filmmaker Chloé Zhao first made her name with two small, delicate films: Songs My Brothers Taught Me and The Rider. Both blended fiction and documentary, immersing viewers in South Dakota’s world of rodeos, horses, Indigenous communities, wide-open plains, reservations, and those mythical Badlands that seem to whisper an unreadable message from deep within the earth. East of Wall is not a Zhao film, but it could easily be mistaken for one. First-time director Kate Beecroft clearly draws on Zhao’s early work as she approaches a universe that feels deeply connected to it. Who knows—maybe in a few years she’ll be competing for the same Oscars Zhao now chases.

Premiering and winning awards at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Beecroft’s film begins with a real family and asks them to play versions of themselves—with a few narrative tweaks. On one hand, she introduces story elements that help shape the plot. On the other, she adds two professional actors—Scoot McNairy and Jennifer Ehle—who interact with the family and help push certain dramatic threads forward. In truth, the film doesn’t really need them: Tabatha Zimiga, her daughter Porshia, and the rest of their children, stepchildren, and foster kids manage perfectly well on their own. Certainly on horseback, but also in front of the camera.

That makes sense: this is, in a way, what they do. Tabatha is an expert in all things horse-related, the kind of person who only needs to look at one to understand everything about it. Recently widowed, she now handles the work alone: rescuing horses, training them, and trying to sell them. Her teenage daughter Porshia is a gifted rider who showcases the animals to potential buyers—whether at small local auctions or on TikTok, where they post daring videos that highlight both the horses’ quality and their own skill. Even with all that, it’s not enough for Tabatha to make ends meet: the generous woman also cares for half a dozen kids from the area whose parents have abandoned them or simply don’t pay them much attention.

This tough, big-hearted woman—somewhere between country and punk, with a haircut that invites debate—must juggle all that while dealing with her mother (played by Ehle), a kind but somewhat alcoholic woman; a young son who doesn’t speak; and her tense relationship with Porshia, who is struggling emotionally with the sudden death of her father. One problem seems closer to being solved when Roy Waters (McNairy), a gentle Texas rancher with his own troubles, offers to buy Tabatha’s land and ease many of her financial pressures. But it’s not that simple: the family’s connection to the land goes far beyond its practical use, tied up with memory, identity, and a profound sense of belonging.

Beecroft navigates an undefinable space between documentary and fiction. The Zimiga family plays itself, and their riding skills are unmatched—but they also seem uncannily attuned to the presence of the camera. In that sense, the film recalls the work of Italian filmmaker Roberto Minervini, who often embeds himself in rural American communities and portrays them through similar formal strategies. Here, alongside the daily routines and the warm relationship everyone has with the horses, other issues also surface: the constant, looming presence of alcohol; generational traumas carried by the women; and the scars of economic and social neglect.

Still, Beecroft doesn’t frame East of Wall around any single theme or issue. Yes, the film touches on gender-based violence, Indigenous identity, economic exploitation, legal manipulation, and alcoholism—but only as elements woven into the world these characters inhabit. What truly matters to Beecroft is affection, devotion, care, and even sacrifice: Tabatha’s fierce determination to keep her patchwork family afloat. Even the characters who might appear abrasive or potentially antagonistic are treated with generosity. There are no villains here, no simplified conflicts. There are disagreements, tensions, traumas, and pain—but also an understanding that everyone, with their own limitations and circumstances, is simply doing the best they can.

The film does carry a few first-feature missteps: a certain visual indulgence in landscapes and golden-hour photography, poetic metaphors tied to the Earth that feel overly literary for this setting, and a heavy use of contemporary country-hip-hop crossover tracks. Yes, it might be true that people in the modern West use TikTok and listen to Shaboozey, but the barrage of radio-friendly songs sometimes works against the melancholic tone the film reaches for.

Yet these are minor flaws. East of Wall is one of those films whose appearance on local platforms feels almost accidental—quietly dropped on rental services—but which proves far more cinematically vibrant than most weekly releases. Even if it’s not entirely new or original, working within an aesthetic lineage that stretches back at least to Terrence Malick’s 1970s period, Beecroft’s debut contains more humanity, beauty, and pure cinema in its 97 minutes than ninety percent of what arrives in commercial theaters or on streaming platforms today.