Origin (2023)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
Stellar filmmaking, storytelling, with a powerful message and lead performance by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Origin is one of 2023’s best films.
Writer/director Ava DuVernay adapts the best-selling book “Caste” in a manner that conveys history and learning, while also delivering an emotionally moving biopic.
Deeply thought-provoking and a film that spurs conversation and debate. DuVernay presents Isabel Wilkerson’s story and lets viewers decide.
NO
If you are expecting a traditional narrative, Origin is a hybrid of traditional filmmaking and hints of documentary storytelling. The framing may frustrate viewers expecting something more straightforward.
Some may see this as little more than “preachy” and pushing an agenda.
You read “Caste” and dismiss it -OR- you feel like movies addressing racial oppression and social imbalance only create problems.
OUR REVIEW
One of the most challenging and ambitious cinematic adaptations brought to screen in recent memory, Origin, Ava DuVernay’s latest film, is a probing, powerful look at institutional racism and the mechanisms we have in place to further bolster inequality, racist practices, and a world of otherness. Adapted from Isabel Wilkerson’s groundbreaking, best-selling, and provocative book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents,” DuVernay not only tells us Wilkerson’s story and what drove her to pursue this work, we also hear Wilkerson investigate, learn, and develop an understanding around her belief that racism in America is more aligned to that of a caste system.
Again, this is heady stuff to adapt into a feature film. DuVernay, however, has done a masterful job in telling this complex and multi-layered story of author and life’s work.
Wilkerson is portrayed here by the fantastic Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who guides us effortlessly through a film of complex emotions, concepts, and discoveries. DuVernay’s script allows the Oscar-nominated actor to explore a range of depth with her performance. Not only does her embodiment of Wilkerson deal with personal tragedy, but a sense of deeper understanding develops around what she sees in the world around her.
Origin is more than one woman’s journey to realizing an epiphany in the form of an ideology or philosophy that attempts to explain the “why” and “how” behind persistent racial inequality. DuVernay finds a narrow opening between biopic and documentary, crafting a story of understanding, compassion, discovery, while boldly stepping forward into an oftentimes confrontational space.
For those new to Wilkerson and her work, please pardon the gross simplification I am about to share of her studies around “Caste.”
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author theorizes that race is not the actual issue in why we have inequality and oppression of vulnerable and marginalized communities. America, she argues, is a caste system - a structured social hierarchy where individuals are born into specific hereditary groups that determine their social status, occupation, and roles in the larger society. She speaks to how this is deeply woven into our cultural norms and practices. How people remain blind to it. Why some in our country remain steadfast in their refusal to recognize, or even acknowledge the pervasiveness of inequality and oppression in our country - the supposed land of the free and the land of opportunity for all.
Often during Origin, I was enamored with not only the way DuVernay finds a way to ask hard questions, but also makes us care so deeply about her subject. We care about the journey Wilkerson is taking, what she discovers in the countless interviews and conversations she has exploring her thesis. Rather than being too focused on the person or the discussion of caste, here the balance is nearly perfect.
Isabel’s close connection with her cousin Marion (Niecy Nash-Betts) provides a breakthrough. At a cookout, as Isabel finally finds the right words to explain her thesis of “Caste” to her sister in a way she understands, Marion tells her if she can stick to that message, people will listen to what she has to say.
A friend told me Origin is like a police procedural story, but instead of investigators and detectives solving a murder, you have professors, authors, and academics trying to solve racism. He’s not completely wrong, but Origin isn’t inaccessible filmmaking. Ellis-Taylor’s humanity is raw and deeply moving. She shares wonderful scenes with nearly every screen partner she encounters, including Jon Bernthal, who is here all too briefly as her husband Brett.
Wilkerson travels to India, to Germany. She studies the Dalits, people who were placed among the lowest caste in India. Wilkerson finds evidence indicating Hitler was influenced by segregation as he reigned maniacally over Nazi Germany. A German friend, Sabine (Connie Nielsen), proceeds to tell Wilkerson about slavery, with no compunction about the lecture she is delivering to a Black American woman, who has made institutional racism the focus of her post-academic career.
Origin is powerful and important. Searing and stunning, in key moments, DuVernay simply knives through the superfluous arguments and doubles down on fact, research, and investigation. Some may dismiss “Caste” and Wilkerson’s work as folly. Others may find her work illuminating and groundbreaking.
DuVernay simply asks you to listen and consider. See the person behind the words. Understand that Wilkerson is simply trying to find a way to leave things better for those who follow in her footsteps. Her work is foundational. Her books are best sellers, read by millions. As a film, Origin finds a purity of hope amid countless stories and examples of despair.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash-Betts, Emily Yancy, Finn Wittrock, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Vera Farmiga, Blair Underwood, Connie Nielsen, Audra McDonald, Nick Offerman, Myles Frost, Victoria Pedretti
Director: Ava DuVernay
Written by: Ava DuVernay
Inspired by the book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
Release Date: December 8, 2023
NEON