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Quick LinksWho Did Scoot McNairy Play In the Dceu?What Was East of Wall About?

The following contains spoilers for East of Wall, which was screened at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

When it comes to Lex Luthor, DC Comics fans will always have their preferences. Many adored the quirky portrayal by the late Gene Hackman. Others gravitated towards the more serious ones, like Michael Rosenbaum from Smallville and Michael Cudlitz from Superman & Lois.

The most polarizing one, however, was Jesse Eisenberg's Lex from Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Some viewers felt he was too eccentric, coming off a bit like Willy Wonka. Coincidentally, that Zack Snyder Dceu film had another actor who would have been a perfect Lex. A Neo-Western from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival proves that Scoot McNair was gravely miscast in the minor role he was given.

Who Did Scoot McNairy Play In the Dceu?...

So much of the American cowboy mythos — the way they talk, the silhouette they cut, the clothes they wear — has been codified, if not invented wholesale, by Hollywood. From first shot to last, Kate Beecroft’s “East of Wall” expands our perception of those iconic horse wranglers to consider the women so often overlooked. In the tradition of Chloé Zhao’s “The Rider,” this eye-opening 21st-century Western was inspired by real people: Debuting writer-director Beecroft convinced the Zimiga family — most notably single mom Tabatha and her daughter, Porshia, a TikTok star and rodeo queen — to participate in a drama extrapolated from their own lives, all but rewriting the genre with the result.

Beecroft derives unquantifiably rich scenic value from the stunning South Dakota backdrops, whether handheld shots of magic-hour vistas or weightless drone shots through the vast, corrugated folds of the Badlands. But it’s the tough, sun-blasted faces of...

East of Wall explores the story deeply embedded in the rural and familial terrain of South Dakota, presenting a window into the world of Tabatha Zimiga, her daughter Porshia, and their community.

Tabatha, a determined horse trainer, grapples with grief and economic challenges while maintaining her ranch and supporting a group of displaced young people. The narrative unfolds against the stark yet beautiful Badlands, examining the delicate balance between endurance and preservation.

The relationship between Tabatha and Porshia carries weight, complicated by her husband’s death and generational differences. The story intertwines personal struggles with the broader challenge of surviving on the frontier, where family connections represent both support and strain. Roy Waters enters as an external figure offering financial support, which tests Tabatha’s strong sense of independence.

His proposal creates a critical moment of decision—whether to accept external help for financial stability or maintain her core principles.

The degree of difficulty in making East of Wall must have been enormous: a small budget, a series of remote locations, a slew of non-actor performers, and the incredibly arduous task of working with horses. Written and directed by Kate Beecroft, the film stars Tabatha Zimiga as a version of herself. In real life, Zimiga runs a South Dakota ranch where she raises horses she then sells via social media. Her daughter Porshia also stars here, and is quite good. The film as a whole is a fictional narrative wrapped up in the facts of the Zimiga clan. Following the untimely death of her husband, Tabatha is burdened with significant financial responsibilities as well as a large chosen family that lives at her ranch: a number of older children with no place to go have found a home with her and her biological children.

The great Jennifer Ehle plays Tracey,...

A few years back, according to production notes, writer-director Kate Beecroft took a wrong turn in the middle of hardscrabble horse country and discovered Tabatha Zimiga and her teenage daughter, Porshia, along with their ragtag extended family of blood relations and friends. Playing themselves in Beecroft’s East of Wall, a work that blends documentary observation and fictional storytelling “inspired by real people and certain actual circumstances,” the Zimigas hold the screen like nobody’s business. Like the seemingly godforsaken terrain, the movie takes a while to reveal its potent beauty. But it signals from the get-go, bolstered by a dynamic selection of kick-ass contemporary tracks (including two by Shaboozey), that this is no old-school West.

On her ranch outside the tiny town of Wall, South Dakota, Tabatha, a trainer with an uncanny talent for reading horses, struggles to make a living, via local auctions and TikTok, selling the last-chance...

From Vittorio di Sica’s “Bicycle Thieves” to the films of the Safdies and Sean Baker, using non-professional actors has long been a tool filmmakers have employed to add a note of authenticity to their work. And yet, with “East of Wall,” writer/director Kate Beecroft elevates this concept to greater heights, crafting a feature docu-fiction debut that is cinematically and narratively rich, but also takes care to reflect the deeper reality at the heart of its story.

The film stars newcomer Tabatha Zimiga as…Tabatha Zimiga. Joined by her real-life daughter Porshia and a cast made up mostly of the young, motley crew that’s found refuge on her South Dakota horse ranch, Tabatha is not exactly the Mother Goose type. She wears heavy makeup, has tattoos that run down her neck, and shaves half her head to replicate the look of warriors. At the auctions where she sells...

When the first audience to see Kate Beecroft’s feature directorial debut, “East of Wall,” files into its Friday morning premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, they won’t be the only ones seeing it for the first time. Its own stars, including Tabatha Zimiga and her daughter Porshia Zimiga, have yet to view the film. After all, they lived it, sort of.

“I thought about this long and hard,” Beecroft told IndieWire. “If I was going to show it to them at home? South Dakota is like, you walk in the door and no one says hi to you, you don’t want to show emotion. No hugs, nothing. I’ve changed that in them. I’m always like, ‘Get up and hug me.’ But I don’t think it would have that support that Sundance carries, and I think what Tabby and these kids need is to know how amazing they are,...