Origin
Ava DuVernay is no stranger to undertaking big tasks and succeeding. She has won multiple awards, been nominated for many others and has her own independent distribution company. A pre-recorded message from the writer/director that played before our screening of her new film, Origin, was met with enthusiastic applause from the audience. I joined in feeling like a bit of an imposter because, while I’m embarrassed to admit it, this is the first of her films that I’ve seen. And I started with a biggie – the film is based on the 2020 book Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson, who argues that racism in America is an aspect of a caste system comparable to the regime in Nazi Germany and the various caste systems that still exist in India. I left Origin in awe of DuVernay’s ambitions and by extension Wilkerson, even if the conclusions presented in the film are not as persuasive as they ought to be.
Origin opens on the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin, a tragedy that writer Isabel (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) is consulted on by New York Times editor Amari Selvan (Blair Underwood). She supposes some theories contrary to what her peers have come up with but is happy in her day-to-day with husband Brett (Jon Bernthal) and has her mother’s declining health to deal with, so declines the offer to write a piece. But later, after an onslaught of personal loss, Isabel decides to transform her grief into purpose. Her initial observation that Trayvon Martin’s murderer was a Hispanic man who took it upon himself to patrol a white neighbourhood opens a train of thought that will span time and continents, building on the hypothesis that racism in the US is part of a much larger, interconnected series of pillars all holding up the concept of caste.
Shortly after the real-life Wilkerson’s book was released it was announced that DuVernay would write, direct and produce a film adaptation for Netflix. But Netflix, being the fickle beasts that they are, ended up passing and so did many studios, forcing DuVernay to source financing herself. Two years later production started and the film premiered at Venice, where it received an 8-minute long standing ovation. It’s not unusual for films to enjoy such a response at festivals - Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis somehow got a whole 12-minutes at Cannes - but it’s a metric that contributes to a film’s hype before its release. Go into Origin after exposure to quotes loaded with terms like “cinematic masterpiece” and “pure poetry” and you might expect something the film cannot deliver. But what it does do is present a simplified view of a subject far beyond what most of us can comprehend, and blends it with a deeply personal story that tugs at even the most calcified heartstrings.
Worthy of particular credit is the film’s focal point Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who serves as a sort of documentarian and whose personal plights we just happen to be privy to. She and her family feel incredibly real, thanks also in part to her co-stars Jon Bernthal, Emily Yancy as her mother Ruby and the delightful Niecy Nash as Cousin Marion. Matthew J. Lloyd’s cinematography contrasts between intimate close-quarters when following these immediate characters and places us at arms length during the more difficult, but beautifully stylised, sequences depicting the historical (and not so historical) atrocities of which Isabel is trying to make sense. While the film takes place over multiple time periods and locations, all are captured with care and an aesthetic eye.
The most difficult thing in reviewing a biopic film based on a nonfiction book you’ve not read is judging how much of the original text’s nuance made it in, and how much was omitted. The reviews for Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents are universal in acclaim and Wilkerson is praised for her persuasiveness as a writer, hinting that any qualms with her logic are dealt with in the book sufficiently. In the beginning of the film, Ellis-Taylor’s Isabel claims that she’s a much better writer than speaker and it’s a statement that might ironically reflect the way the film submits its arguments. At some point in the first third, Isabel goes to Germany and has dinner and academic conversation with a German couple, one of whom is played by Connie Nielsen. Her character dismisses Isabel’s thesis as it currently stands, refuting her claims that slavery and the Holocaust can be compared because one was a matter of subjugation and the other, a matter of extermination. “Your thesis is flawed,” she tells her and while Isabel spends the rest of the film attempting, and supposedly succeeding, to prove otherwise, it’s an argument that I don’t feel is adequately convincing in the end.
I also wish the film, in its grand ambition, had the guts to explore racism and caste in other countries outside the direct scope of Isabel’s thesis. The film makes the slightest reference to Palestine (a throwaway line, really) before bowing to the pressure of Hollywood and its inability to point the finger in the direction of Israel, and it feels a little outside Isabel’s character to disregard an area of the world so heavily impacted by the US. And while it might not be relevant to her argument, it seems irresponsible not to mention Australia and its historical and ongoing problems. The film also becomes a little heavy handed in its metaphors at times (inheriting a house is like inheriting the world, cracks and all) and can resolve issues prematurely; one scene, where Isabel bonds with a MAGA-hat wearing plumber over their shared exasperation of having parents, gives Paul Haggis’ Crash when it should be aiming for Louis Theroux.
But when it boils down to it, Origin as a film doesn’t necessarily fall apart if it doesn’t persuade the viewer of Isabel’s theory because that’s only half of the story. The other half is about the restorative power of finding connections in your community, as well as outside of it. It’s about recognising that you still have something important to give to the world, even if it feels like the world has taken everything from you. Where Origin is at its most potent is in the emotionally hefty scenes between Isabel and the friends, family and faraway strangers she speaks to while piecing together her thesis; I fogged up my glasses more than once, and I know others did too.
While far from a masterpiece, Origin is an admirable achievement for Ava DuVernay and all involved, and I know there are certain segments of our society that would benefit greatly from seeing it. For a film that attempts to traverse so many complex topics, it lands them with grace and only slightly shaky footing. So, if you’ve got a problematic family member whose lips you sometimes wish you could staple shut, this one might be worth a trip to the cinema.
Verdict:
☆☆☆½
Origin is in cinemas this Thursday, April 4.
