Rowdy Girl is a provocative, vital and engrossing documentary about Renee King-Sonnen, a cattle rancher, who convinced her husband, Tommy Sonnen, to convert his beef cattle ranch to an animal sanctuary. Jason Goldman opts for a laissez-faire, fly-on-the-wall approach by avoiding talking-head interviews and just filming Renee and her husband at their home and animal sanctuary, namely, the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary. There’s no flashy cinematography or an overbearing music score, so Goldman has faith in Renee and Tommy’s story to emotionally propel the film and he also trusts the audience’s emotions concurrently. It’s fascinating to learn how Renee experienced her epiphanies that led to her radical decision to not only stop raising and killing cattle for her husband’s beef production business, but also to become vegan. Rowdy Girl doesn’t dwell on the horrors of the meat packing industry like Food, Inc. manages to do nor does it become preachy or heavy-handed. The images of Renee bonding with one of the animals in the sanctuary and displaying her compassion, empathy, and introspection are equally heartwarming and inspirational. At 1 hour and 12 minutes, Rowdy Girl opens at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema via Argot Pictures.