Origin (12A)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson is tending to her elderly mother, Ruby, in between speaking engagements. Newspaper editor Amari Selvan encourages Isabel to listen to an emergency services call made by the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin. Two devastating personal losses within the space of a year shatter Isabel;'s world but with the help of her cousin, she returns to work and undertakes globe-trotting research for her book

LondonNet Film Review

Origin (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

In writer-director Ava DuVernay’s beguiling biographical drama, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) delivers an empowering talk about her nonfiction book, Caste: The Origins Of Our Discontents. “You don’t escape trauma by ignoring it,” she professes. “You escape trauma by confronting it.” Her words resonate deeply, delivered a matter of months after the murder of George Floyd and before Donald Trump alleges the 2020 US presidential election was stolen from him. We are the uncontested winners with DuVernay’s picture…

An elegant, non-linear script deftly traces connective tissue between historical touchstones in Wilkerson’s bestseller, which explores how entire groups have been dehumanised throughout history. DuVernay glides between these deeply-moving stories of courage and defiance, which include early 20th-century social reformer Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar (Gaurav J Pathania), who openly challenges the idea that Dalits are the untouchable outcasts of Indian society; African-American anthropologists (Isha Blaaker, Jasmine Cephas Jones), who infiltrate the Mississippi Delta to study the subservience of black people to the whites; and a Nazi Party member (Finn Wittrock) and his Jewish lover (Victoria Pedretti) caught up in the gathering storm of 1937 Germany.

Tragedies of the past ripple through time to the fatal 2012 shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost) in Sanford, Florida, by a self-appointed neighbourhood watch captain. Ellis-Taylor delivers an emotionally raw performance as Wilkerson, who begins the film tending to her elderly mother, Ruby (Emily Yancy), in between speaking engagements. Isabel and financial analyst husband Brett Hamilton (Jon Bernthal) wrestle with their guilt as they ruefully oversee Ruby’s move into an assisted-living facility.

Soon after, newspaper editor Amari Selvan (Blair Underwood) encourages Isabel to listen to an emergency services call made by the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin. “You can’t be walking around on a white street at night and not expect trouble,” Ruby comments on the case. The idea for a new book germinates but two devastating personal losses within the space of a year almost break Isabel’s spirit. Steadfast cousin Marion (Niecy Nash) provides emotional ballast so Isabel can eventually return to work and undertake globe-trotting research for her book

Filmed on location in the American South, Berlin and Delhi, Origin is another masterful portrait of the multi-faceted human condition from DuVernay. The writer-director’s personal engagement with Wilkerson is evident, confidently shepherding us through dense subject matter that could, in lesser hands, feel inaccessible or dry. “There’s more to life than what we can see,” Isabel sermonises as a soulmate lingers in death’s embrace. Through DuVernay’s lens, we see filmmaking of the highest calibre that expands minds, profoundly moves and sparks animated discussion.

– Jo Planter