Ava DuVernay has taken on some massive topics and projects in recent years, from bringing Martin Luther King Jr. to the screen with Selma, explaining the prison-industrial complex in 13th, and adapting one of the most beloved YA novels of all time with A Wrinkle in Time. But her latest film, Origin, might be the most complex and compelling project yet, as she attempts to turn Isabel Wilkerson’s nonfiction book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”—which explores racism in the United States and the tools in place to put social hierarchies in place—into a film. It’s an odd project, one that only works in fits and starts, but once DuVernay gets all the pieces in place and unites Wilkerson’s thoughts, Origin comes together in unexpected ways.
Recent Oscar-nominee Aunjanue Ellis stars as Isabel Wilkerson, the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism. Wilkerson’s editor (Blair Underwood) recommends that she listen to the 911 audio from the night Trayvon Martin was killed, as this seems like something Wilkerson might want to write about. But as she contemplates what her next work will be, she is met with a year full of loss, and her exploration of the type of racism that led to the death of Martin expands into a look at the prejudice and racism over centuries and throughout different cultures.
‘Origin’ Is Fairly Obvious in the Themes It’s Trying to Address
Origin is an odd book to bring to the screen in this way, and it’s easy to see DuVernay (who also wrote the script) potentially turning into Nicolas Cage in Adaptation in order to do so. Unfortunately, for the majority of Origin, DuVernay struggles to make this concept work. A large part of Origin revolves around Wilkerson deciding whether she even wants to write the book as we spend time with her and her husband (Jon Bernthal), her mother (Emily Yancy), and her best friend (Niecy Nash-Betts). The entire first act is basically asking the audience to forget that they’re watching the film adaptation of the book that Wilkerson is deciding whether or not to write.
But as Wilkerson begins to put together the ideas that will eventually become “Caste,” DuVernay is presenting basic ideas that anyone watching Origin should already know. For example, Wilkerson has conversations comparing the Nazi flag to the Confederate flag, or how slavery influenced Nazism. In trying to draw attention to racist history and how it impacts the past and the present, Origin is hitting on fairly obvious ideas—as if DuVernay feels the need to give us a CliffsNotes version of our own racist history.
In the End, Ava DuVernay Makes It All Come Together Beautifully—Just Too Late
Because of this, there are large stretches where Origin drags as the film attempts to cover a lot of ground. But when Wilkerson begins to truly put together the book itself, it all starts to come together. Wilkerson’s primary focus is on slavery in America, as well as the caste systems of Nazi Germany and India, and how these have impacted each other. DuVernay beautifully weaves these ideas in and out of each other in the third act, as we see Wilkerson’s thesis become something she can prove and connect the dots to. Because of this, Origin ends in what almost seems like a supercut of the most depressing ideas ever brought to screen, as we watch a young German man and his Jewish partner get captured by the Nazis, interspersed with footage of slaves coming crammed together in ships, mixed with the horrific treatment of the Dalit people of India, and all wrapped together with Trayvon Martin. For most of Origin, we’re watching Wilkerson and DuVernay cook, but in that final third, Origin gives us the meal they’ve been preparing and it’s exceptional.
This last segment also works best because, instead of describing broad concepts that are already fairly well-known, DuVernay brings specificity to these ideas, and how they intermingle. One of the best parts of the film follows a personal story about a man who, as a kid, played on a baseball team that had one Black player, and his heartbreaking recollection about what happened when the team went to a public pool. It’s this personal lean that makes these ideas far more effective, and by putting a face to these concepts, DuVernay finds what works in this story—it’s just too late.
This impressive conclusion just doesn’t make up for how iffy the rest of the film is and, considering how well 13th expounded on difficult ideas and massive topics, it’s sort of unusual that DuVernay didn’t try to adapt this as a documentary. Origin is a fascinating experiment, but also a deeply flawed one that doesn’t entirely hold together.
The film often feels more like a biopic for Wilkerson than an expansion of her ideas, but Ellis does a fine job of showing her headspace in deciding to write this book with the personal moments that made this eventually feel like a story she needed to tell. But it’s Nash-Betts who steals the show, bringing a sense of joy and personality to a film that can get boiled down to facts and concepts. Bernthal and Yancy are also quite good in how they add to Wilkerson’s story—especially when Yancy discusses the fears of living in a world where you have to act in a way to keep yourself safe.
DuVernay took a big swing with Origin, and that’s certainly to be commended, but the film sadly doesn’t work more often than it does. The impact of the end makes the journey worthwhile, but it’s a rocky road to that conclusion.
Rating: C+
The Big Picture
- Ava DuVernay’s Caste is an odd project that struggles to make its concept work.
- Tthe film’s third act beautifully weaves together the book’s main themes in a powerful and impactful way.
- While the conclusion is impressive, it doesn’t fully make up for the film’s overall flaws and uneven pacing.
Origin played at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. It currently does not have a release date.
