A late moment that gets under your skin: Tabatha Zimiga sits around the campfire in the evening with members of her small community and, with a brittle voice and moist eyes, begins to talk about her husband’s surprising suicide in very clear, direct words – while the light from the flames flickers in her face, and daughter Porshia listens unnoticed.
The way the stocky and tough-looking Tabatha, who appears almost warlike with her sidecut, tattoos, piercings and thickly applied eyeliner, suddenly looks deep into her soul seems emotionally true and touches the heart – especially when you keep in mind that Zimiga is playing herself and has actually experienced what she describes. Director Kate Beecroft’s semi-documentary feature debut “The New West” fuses reality and fiction. Unfortunately, the seams remain all too visible, because the inherently strong slice of life always falters when an attempt is made to embed the fascinating snapshots of the life of Zamiga and her surroundings into a narrative.
Tabatha Zimiga dedicates her life to horses – in “The New West” the rancher plays herself.
Tabatha has an almost magical knack for horses and her treatment of the animals is highly respected throughout the area. Less magical, however, is the monthly income she earns from training and reselling rescued horses on TikTok and at trade fairs. Money is tight, also because she not only has to keep her family afloat, but also the many young people who have been abandoned by their parents for various reasons and have sought shelter with her on the ranch.
There are also difficulties in her private life: she has a son with a speech delay, and her relationship with her daughter has been more than difficult since her father’s death. But one day there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel: The well-off rancher Roy (Scoot McNairy) shows up at her house one day and offers to buy the ranch – but Tabatha and Anne can stay and carry on as before! A tempting offer, but the mistress of the house hesitates…
A product of chance
“The New West” came about by chance. Beecroft drove across the United States with her cameraman looking for inspiration for a film and came across Zimiga and her ranch. She was so clueless at this point that she thought she was in Nebraska – when in fact she was in southern Dakota. The chance encounter turned into three years during which the filmmaker lived on the ranch with the blended family and collected material for the film.
Zimiga – who started out as a waitress and eventually found her calling in a male-dominated world – proves to be an extremely fascinating personality in “The New West”. Her life story is so unusual that the question inevitably arises as to why Beecroft had to invent something else and bring professional actors on board. It’s also the scripted moments that seem quite artificial in this otherwise surprisingly authentic world and in which a professional actor like Scoot McNairy, known from Gareth Edwards’ “Monsters”, seems strangely out of place.
Kate Beecraft’s debut film is always strongest when he simply observes the everyday life of the unusual patchwork community.
“The New West” would have been a better film if they had refrained from embedding a (rather thin) narrative into the otherwise rather loose series of captivating snapshots. Ultimately, one enjoys immersing oneself in the portrait of this rough but close-knit community, through which Beecroft questions the classic family model. The magnificent landscape images, in turn, point out how small people are – and how great they can be if they just stick together.
Conclusion: Kate Beecroft’s directorial debut, which is somewhat reminiscent of Chloé Zhao’s Oscar winner “Nomadland”, stumbles shortly before the finish line: unfortunately, combining reality and fiction doesn’t really work. As soon as the incredibly authentic-feeling portrait of a patchwork community moves into fictional territory, you can hear the script pages rustling. But thankfully this is only relatively rarely the case: convincing amateur actors and great pictures ensure that in the end you are reluctant to say goodbye to Zimiga and his followers.