Origin
“Origin’s Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor gives a soul-stirring performance, but she can’t rein in the overstretched film by sheer force of will.”
Title: Origin (2023)
Director: Ava DuVernay 👩🏾🇺🇸
Writers: Ava DuVernay 👩🏾🇺🇸 based on the book by Isabel Wilkerson 👩🏾🇺🇸
Reviewed by Carolyn Hinds 👩🏾🇧🇧🇨🇦♿️
—SPOILERS AHEAD—
Technical: 3/5
Origin begins with 17-year-old Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost) leaving a convenience store and walking down a suburban street, anxious as he’s followed by an unfamiliar car. The scene switches to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, as she gives a lecture on race to a packed auditorium. Upon leaving the podium, a man asks if Isabel’s heard the news—there’s been a shooting. He urges her to listen to the 911 recording of the incident. Suddenly, viewers are at home with Isabel, listening along as a resident tells emergency dispatch that she heard someone screaming for help … before the awful and unmistakable sound of gunshots.
With these opening sequences that depict 2012’s heartbreaking murder of Martin, writer-director Ava DuVernay lets audiences know from the get-go that her latest film will center around anti-Black racism in America. Specifically, she explores how the violence of that fateful night shaped the country, as well as the life of non-fiction writer Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.)
With works like Selma (2014), 13th (2016), and limited series Colin in Black & White, DuVernay has cemented herself as storyteller who uses film and TV to tackle the politics of racism in America with an unflinching eye. She has a blunt style that can at times be too much to bear, as with 2019’s When They See Us. But she takes a different route with Origin, boldly mixing genres and camerawork which, unfortunately, don’t always mesh well as the film moves through different time periods and locations.
DuVernay divides the various chapters of Isabel’s life by giving them different color palettes, textures, and visual styles. The scenes that focus on Isabel’s personal life, shared with her husband Brett (Jon Bernthal), her aging mother Ruby (Emily Yancy), and cousin Marion (Niecy Nash-Betts), are presented through emotional and dramatic narratives. When Isabel turns inward, cinematographer Matthew J. Lloyd portrays her psyche as a void where she rests on a bed of dried leaves, with a surrealist effect. The tone changes again when Isabel later visits Germany and India for her research, and lectures by real life scholars and historians recall a documentary, complete with voice-overs as Isabel shares her thoughts.
Along with these incongruences, a few questions about creative decision-making come up. Why did DuVernay hit audiences over the head with an almost full reenactment of Trayvon Martin’s killing, a traumatic event for many? What was the purpose of using the actual 911 recording, so that we’d hear the literal gunshot that took the teen’s life? It’s jarring to experience real-world material used in this semi-fictionalized way.
The movie also tries to explore some of the themes found in Wilkerson’s books, but without the academic rigor of text—and without the uncluttered approach of a straight biopic that could’ve fleshed out Isabel’s relationship with her mother, or explored her deceased father (about whom nothing is mentioned beyond him being a Tuskegee Airman)—Origin doesn’t succeed much on any front. It relies too heavily on its important material, and admittedly pitch-perfect acting, to get by. Ellis-Taylor gives a soul-stirring rendition of Isabel, but she can’t rein in the overstretched film by sheer force of will.
Gender: 5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES
An aspect of Origin that does work well is Isabel’s relationships with her mother Ruby and cousin Marion. These three women have solid bonds filled with trust and respect, forged through not just family but also shared lived experiences as Black women in a racist and misogynistic society.
In the scenes with her mother, we see where Isabel gets her strength of conviction as a scholar and her curiosity as a journalist. Better yet, we see each woman as an individual, with unique belief systems. Coming from the time of the Jim Crow era and segregation, Ruby is still of the mindset that Black people should keep their heads down and defer to white people as a method of survival, implying that perhaps Martin could have somehow avoided being murdered. In contrast, Marion expresses rage at the systems that collectively victimize Black children and adults and protect white perpetrators. She also lends a sympathetic ear when Isabel wants to discuss personal problems, keeping her cousin grounded while motivating Isabel to believe in her own ideas and professional capabilities.
Other female characters, like Isabel’s close friend Miss Hale (Audra McDonald) and fellow researcher Elizabeth Davis (Jasmine Cephas Jones), provide additional examples of the toll race and gender discrimination takes on Black women. Elizabeth is especially interesting, as she’s based on the real life researcher who—along with her husband, Allison Davis (Isha Carlos Blaaker)—conducted groundbreaking studies on the structural racism of 1940s America, providing insights for Isabel’s own research.
Race: 4.75/5
DuVernay’s film centers around race and ethnicity, delving into Nazi history and its relationship to early 20th century American segregation—subjects that Wilkerson tackles in her book, Caste. On screen, these themes are translated through the ill-fated, real life romance between Jewish woman Irma Eckler (Victoria Pedretti) and August Landmesser (Finn Wittrock), a German man who renounced his pledge to the Nazi party. Viewers also watch as Isabel visits libraries in Germany and speaks to historians, discovering the connection between Nazism and American racism that would inform her research. She then travels across India to learn about the caste system, Isabel shining with a thirst for knowledge that feels so vibrant, it appears to be not just her character, but Ellis-Taylor herself learning more about the world during conversations with actual Indian scholars like Dr. Suraj Yengde (who plays himself) about class struggles, and the fight for equality for Dalits, the “lowest” caste in Indian society.
With such a focus on injustice, it’s disappointing, then, that the film avoids nuance around colorism and how it’s embedded within India’s caste system as a key defining trait. The film also omits any mention of non-Jewish oppression by the Nazi regime, even as they targeted Black, queer, and disabled people, as well as other ethnic communities, with similar virulence. When doing the work of excising systemic inequality, it feels important for storytellers to recognize that harms against one group are almost always tied to harms against other marginalized communities.
Bonus for Disability: +0.50
Whether due to Ruby’s age, health, or an accident, how and why Isabel’s mother uses a wheelchair is unclear. Either way, it’s positive how the mobility aid is presented as a normal part of her life. In a heartfelt scene, we see how close Ruby is to Brett, who she calls “sweetie” and shares a quiet hug before he lifts her into her wheelchair.
Ruby also craves independence, determined to live in a nursing home where she’ll have her own space and be around others of the same age and similar lived experiences as her. Though Isabel is apprehensive about having her mother away from them, Brett advocates for Ruby’s autonomy and ability to look after herself.
Bonus for Religion: +0.00
As mentioned, Ruby’s research takes her through Nazi history, and DuVernay humanizes the regime’s victims through star-crossed lovers that include a Jewish woman, Irma, played by Jewish actor Pedretti. However, there really isn't a strong focus on antisemitism, so the inclusion is more incidental than substantial.
Mediaversity Grade: A- 4.42/5
After appearances in King Richard (2021) and Lovecraft Country, Ellis-Taylor proves once again why she’s a force, capturing attention in every scene and holding it until the last second. And there’s no denying that DuVernay has previously demonstrated that she can depict human nature with virtuosity, the joys as well as the sorrows. She tries something new with Origin though, getting uneven results.
Like Origin? Try these other titles directed by Ava DuVernay.
When They See Us
A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
Queen Sugar - Season 1