X
- 2023
- PG-13
- Neon
- 2 h 21 m
- 2023
- PG-13
- Neon
- 2 h 21 m
Summary While grappling with tremendous personal tragedy, Isabel (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) sets herself on a path of global investigation and discovery. Despite the colossal scope of her project, she finds beauty and bravery while crafting one of the defining American books of our time. Inspired by the New York Times Best-Seller Caste: The Origins...
Directed By: Ava DuVernay
Written By: Isabel Wilkerson, Ava DuVernay
- 2023
- PG-13
- Neon
- 2 h 21 m
- 2023
- PG-13
- Neon
- 2 h 21 m
Origin
75
7.1
Where to Watch
Summary While grappling with tremendous personal tragedy, Isabel (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) sets herself on a path of global investigation and discovery. Despite the colossal scope of her project, she finds beauty and bravery while crafting one of the defining American books of our time. Inspired by the New York Times Best-Seller Caste: The Origins...
Directed By: Ava DuVernay
Written By: Isabel Wilkerson, Ava DuVernay
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 45 Critic Reviews
75
69% Positive
31 Reviews
31 Reviews
29% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
2% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 45 Critic Reviews
75
69% Positive
31 Reviews
31 Reviews
29% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
2% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Origin, Ava DuVernay’s audacious, ambitious adaptation of the equally audacious and ambitious book “Caste,” operates on so many levels at once that the effect is often dizzyingly disorienting. But hang in there: Viewers who allow themselves to be taken on this wide-ranging, occasionally digressive journey will emerge not just edified but emotionally wrung out and, somehow, cleansed.
The film will get people thinking and talking. The way DuVernay directs it, Origin is a swirling tornado of ideas.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 17 User Ratings
7.1
71% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
18% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
12% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 17 User Ratings
7.1
71% Positive
12 Ratings
12 Ratings
18% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
12% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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Went into Origin not really knowing what to expect and having no knowledge of the source material. What I got was a film that made me re-examine previously held beliefs about some very major situations in life. It also managed to teach more about Indian history & society. Not what I would have expected going to see a film that was mainly about racism in the USA. A great film which I know won’t be seen by as many people as it deserves. I will definitely be recommending to everyone I know.
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One of the most thought-provoking movies in recent years — the kind of film you’ll find impossible to forget, the kind of film you’ll want to discuss and debate with friends and colleagues.
Origin doesn’t always get there, but the effort is exhilarating. It’s the contact high of an artist really going for it.
Origin is noble, high-minded, moving and eye-opening. But as difficult as it was sure to be, shaping these themes, threads and characters into a movie, the film should have been sharper, tighter, poignant but more to the point.
The movie, which chronicles the personal tragedies of Wilkerson’s life as she conceives and researches the book, is an awkward hybrid of these two approaches, neither of which fully succeeds. It’s a drama that wants to be a documentary, and it’s at its best when it’s just reeling off Wilkerson’s fascinating ideas at full flow.
The film repeatedly oversimplifies Wilkerson's polemic, dumbing down the argument for an audience that may well start to feel patronized.
Those who believe that institutionalized systemic racism is fundamentally an American problem should probably give a serious look to this latest offering from writer-director Ava DuVernay, best known for the superb historical drama, “Selma” (2014). Based on the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by best-selling author Isabel Wilkerson, the film examines how organic prejudices are actually a worldwide phenomenon that may or may not have anything specifically to do with race but are more readily attributable to matters of caste. While the picture indeed examines this practice from an American perspective, it also addresses it from the standpoint of the dictates employed in **** Germany and in the longstanding Indian caste system, where race was/is not an inherent issue. Rather, the institutionalized discriminatory practices in these locales (as well as in others) were (and in some cases still are) driven by the implementation of artificial distinctions that have been established and perpetuated based on other characteristics but that have had the same kinds of negative impact as those driven by race-based policies. The filmmaker explores how author Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis Taylor) went about researching and writing the book on this subject, a project undertaken at a time when she was dealing with the fallout from a series of personal tragedies involving her mother (Emily Yancy), husband (Jon Bernthal) and cousin (Niecy Nash-Betts), giving her a reason to pick herself up and carry on with her life. Admittedly, the multiple story threads involved in the narrative and the way in which they’re organized could have used some tweaking for greater clarity and smoother connectedness, and the author’s theories could have stood to be presented a little less overly intellectually at times. However, in the end, the movie’s themes successfully come together to create a captivating and eye-opening hypothesis that we’d all be wise to consider seriously. What’s more, the depiction of Wilkerson’s personal story is filled with a series of strongly emotive moments that are sure to tug heartily at the heart strings, so keep the hankies handy. The film also features an array of fine, small-role supporting performances from the likes of Nick Offerman, Blair Underwood, Audra McDonald, Finn Whitrock, Vera Farmiga, Myles Frost and Lennox Simms. In the end, the revelations exposed here could well make you sad for the needlessly sorry state of humanity. But the picture also provides a deeper, more insightful understanding of what’s fundamentally wrong with humanity, providing us with a key that just might help us find our way out of the current social morass with a solution that could potentially help us finally fix things for good.
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Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Isabel Wilkerson, a writer who decides to research racism and ends up writing the bestseller Based on Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The process leads her to Germany and India before coming up with her revolutionary approach to the hierarchy of human divisions. Director Ava DuVernay (she also co-wrote the screenplay with Wilkerson) has created a hybrid of procedural documentary and personal journey. We watch the author as she discusses her findings with other characters. There are also scenes set in the segregated South, **** Germany and present day India that add human resonance to the subject. This is an ambitious summation of the book's concepts and a drama that also focuses on the influential tragedies in her life. As such, it goes from somewhat academic to closely personal with an assured directorial hand. The movie makes challenging, powerful statements about the history of discrimination, which is not only socially important but deserves to be seen.
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Awards
Women Film Critics Circle Awards
• 5 Nominations
Black Reel Awards
• 5 Nominations
African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA)
• 3 Wins & 4 Nominations
