Origin (2023 | USA | 130 minutes | Ava DuVernay)
Ava DuVernay takes on A Whole Lot in attempting to transmute Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson’s provocative nonfiction book Caste: the Origins of Our Discontents to the screen. Rather than directly illustrate the themes (or “pillars”) of her contextualization of American racism as merely a recent piece of millennia of caste-based segregation and dehumanizing enforcement of systems of power (a heavy lift), she amplifies the degree of difficulty by integrating a human angle.
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays the author, often to strong effect, as she’s summoned into the national dialogue in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s killing. The film is rocky at times but her masterful performance is the stabilizing force that makes any of it work. Audio and recreation of the heartbreaking murder is depicted in the film’s opening as the motivating incident and as an underlying theme that recurs throughout. Compounding the trauma, Wilkerson experiences two personal tragedies in short succession, setting her emotionally adrift while also sharpening her resolve to dive back into writing.
Showing a journalist at work and making it compelling rather than cringy is always a tall task. DuVernay is most successful with the emotional moments, Ellis-Taylor’s time with Jon Bernthal as her onscreen husband sparkles, as do her evocations of abstracted grief. Less convincing are the stops on her Eat, Pray, Love expedition around the world to study topics in caste-based violence like the Holocaust in Germany and the Dalit in India. Du Vernay seems unsure that her audience will recognize her protagonist’s expertise and insight. Her most frequent tactic to convince us is to having other experts marvel at just how important a voice she is or to have ordinary civilians look on with bafflement as she explains her thesis, often begging her to speak to them in terms that their simple-minds can understand. At the same time, she’s often seemingly astounded to have discovered well-known historical facts explained to her by other experts so that she can eagerly jot these observations into her notebook.
I don’t envy the task of turning the long, complex, and recursive process of writing a book, let alone such a vast philosophical and historical argument into two hours of film. To be sure, there are episodes throughout — in Wilkinson’s life and in the historical record she unearths — that demonstrate the strength of DuVernay’s image-making. One scene, reflecting on a seemingly small act of institutional racism and futile resistance, toward the end of the film is heartbreaking and leaves you wishing the whole film had been given more room to breathe. In this way, it’s one of the more frustrating and thought-provoking misfires of the festival. Much of the image-making is astonishing and the performances are strong. Although the fusion of academic and melodramatic doesn’t always work, but the parts that do will really get under the skin.
Origin had its North American premiere at TIFF
This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the film being covered here wouldn’t exist. More information about the strikes can be found on the SAG-AFTRA Strike hubs. Donations to support striking workers can be made at the Entertainment Community Fund.