Ava DuVernay’s ambitious and powerful film Origin opens nationwide in theaters today. Based on Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s critically acclaimed book, Caste, the film engages Wilkerson’s argument that caste is the underlying pin of structural and systemic racism in the United States. Wilkerson suggests we’re so blinded by racism that we’re missing the elephant in the room – caste systems – and their role in maintaining racism in America and beyond.
In the film, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Wilkerson, a brilliant and celebrated journalist, who is developing a thesis on the role caste systems play in racial divisions in the United States. Aunjanue delivers a powerful, Oscar-worthy performance as an intellectually curious woman critically thinking her way through life as real-life dares to flatten her. After experiencing tremendous loss, the character of Isabel continues to explore her proposed theory against the backdrop of major world events that make up what is called, “The Origins of Our Discontents.” Isabel ushers us through caste systems in India, Nazi Germany and Jim Crow-era Mississippi, weaving together a tale of how racism is literally the fabric of our great nation. Ellis-Taylor, a Mississippi native, pours all of who she is into this role and film.
In addition to Ellis-Taylor, Origin showcases powerful performances by Niecy Nash Betts, who stars as Isabel’s loving cousin Marion, Jon Bernthal as Brett, her doting husband and Emily Yancy as Ruby Wilkerson, Isabel’s mother who is the protagonist’s heart and soul. Origin is peppered with weighty scenes like the one featuring Ellis-Taylor and Audra McDonald, who plays Miss Hale, Isabel’s friend and confidant. They speak candidly about race, love, loss and how those three things co-exist in romantic relationships. The actors give every inch of themselves to the characters wringing emotions out of each other and audience members who are pulled into the scene because many have experienced the same trauma and are living through with the characters. Isabel is haunted by the memory of Trayvon Martin, an argument with her husband and the microaggressions by colleagues that are normalized in academic settings. The performances in this film leap from the screen and into your conscious as you are along for a ride that has no end.
The realization that neither racism nor caste have an end and continue to impact our daily interactions with loved ones, oppressors, neighbors and colleagues is what makes this film brilliant and heartbreaking at the same time. In addition to the compelling storyline and outstanding performances, the cinematography is exquisite. Matthew J. Lloyd, who is known for his work in the superhero genre, applies a different type of lens to the subject delivering incredible images that emote and help pull audiences into the scene.
Origin is quite possibly one of the first films to represent the complicated existence of dynamic Black women who do the heavy lifting of studying and writing about intersectionality as journalists, scholars and authors. DuVernay, whose direction is also Oscar worthy, offers up an image of a Black woman who is vulnerable, powerful, intellectual, accessible, honorable, loving, sexual, complicated, thorough, certain and uncertain about the world in front of and behind her simultaneously which is refreshing. Wilkerson and DuVernay’s writing captures the precariousness of being a Black woman in America searching for the truth and challenging the status quo around difficult issues like racism and caste systems.
Much like the character of Isabel and the book Caste, filmgoers will leave theaters thinking their way through life and questioning their ideas about a myriad of topics including the murder of Trayvon Martin. DuVernay’s Origin is bold, courageous and righteous and it is the film many Black folks knew we needed but never thought we would receive.
Origin opens nationwide in theaters January 19, 2024. Check local listings for movie locations and showtimes.
This review was written by Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D., founder & editor-in-chief of The Burton Wire. Follow Nsenga on social media @Ntellectual.
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