Following a critically claimed documentary series on Netflix, director Ava DuVernay returns to the big screen with another look at race and discrimination. Based on the book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Pulitzer Prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson, Origin documents the life Wilkerson (as portrayed by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) as she commits to the idea of writing a book on racism and race in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012. As Isabel travels around the world to document how discrimination has worked across various countries and cultures, she must simultaneously grapple with tremendous personal tragedy.
Origin is comprised of some bold choices from DuVernay, but the most bold of all is certainly the film’s structure. The film seeks to meld the feel of a narrative story with a documentary that expands upon the concept of caste and how it forms the basis of all forms of discrimination within human cultures, whether they be socioeconomic or racial. Flashbacks during the time of the rise of the Nazi party in Germany with the issues of racial injustice in 2010s America and a team of academic researchers documenting life under Jim Crow are depicted as part of Isabel’s research into caste systems and injustice and juxtaposed with her current day work and life story. The script seeks to link Isabel’s personal grief and tragedies with her work in investigating discrimination as a way to meld together the narrative part of the story with the educational component both in terms of structure and emotional resonance, but they ultimately feel like they’re in the way of each other, and thus Origin feels like a film that isn’t entirely sure what it is. Perhaps the best example of this is the a long stretch during the back half of the film’s third act shot documentary style on the history of caste systems and discrimination, a jarring stylistic pivot from the narrative film it had been for the previous amount of its runtime. The result is a film that plays as if it were better suited for a long-form documentary but was forced into the framework of a feature. It’s clear that the point of the film is to educate rather than present the audience with a conflict or story containing tension, suspense, or any of the other emotional elements of a narrative that makes for a compelling film.
Origin’s social commentary is presented as the fuel of the film’s attempted emotional core, but ultimately feels dated and years late. Its exploration of caste is just a rehash of conversations that have taken place ad nauseam for the past ten years not just in cinema, but in society writ large. The repetitiveness and fatigue surrounding the conversations at the center of the film not only make its theme lose any potential bite it may have had, but will actually make the film vexing for many in the audience. There’s a fatigue in the zeitgeist that the social element here is banging right up against, to its detriment. As stated earlier, the film’s raison d’etre is to inform its audience about the concept of caste and its effect on the world’s cultures, institutions, and people. The documentary style that this is delivered in however just makes the viewer feel as if they are being lectured to rather than presented with an engaging story or interesting explanation of a dense concept. The heavy handed way in which the information is presented is meant to convey its weight and importance rather than allowing the film to speak for itself through craftsmanship and care. It’s hashtag important rather than powerful.
Origin isn’t bad in totality as some of its elements work. DuVernay made a bold choice to play the actual audio from the Trayvon Martin murder to drive home its viciousness. A scene that features a MAGA hat wearing plumber named Dave played by Nick Offerman who begins the scene as stoic, curt, and standoffish, but is eventually driven to open up to Isabel and properly service her flooding issue after she responds to his attitude with kindness and a connection over their shared pain of losing a parent displays what empathy and openness can achieve. Isabel also interviews Miss Hale (Audra McDonald) during her research for her book and we’re treated to a story from her childhood about being confronted by her principal about her name that is powerfully delivered. These moments are few and far between however as the attempt to infuse a documentary with feature film elements simply misfires amidst yet another film that talks above its audience about a subject that has been done to death and viewers have been talked at about enough. Having the chutzpah to indecently fund and produce a film that boldly seeks to mix two genres together deserves some credit, but in the end, this one would’ve been better served sticking to a single pathway.
Image: NEON
