The unspoken system that has shaped America and chronicles how lives today are defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

Ava DuVernay’s latest movie, ‘Origin’, is a biographical drama about the author Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis) that follows her as she investigates and writes her nonfiction book ‘Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents’. The movie shows Wilkerson as she grapples with many of the themes that she will explore in that novel, while attempting to deal with personal tragedies in her own life that make her question her place in the world. Aunjanue Ellis makes for a compelling lead and the themes explored here are really intriguing, but I don’t think ‘Origin’ quite comes together and the subject may have been better explored through a documentary.

Wilkerson’s thesis is that the caste system is the root of all of our societal injustices as opposed to race, and she makes her case through looking at three specific groups/circumstances over the course of the book. This begins with African-Americans in the United States, the Jewish community in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s, and the ongoing caste system within India. She speaks to a variety of people in these countries, with flashbacks peppered throughout to depict the experiences of people in the past who were impacted in one way or another by the segregation, or caste systems of the time. The sojourns to these countries create some of the best moments of the film, such as a slightly heated conversation between Isabel and a German scholar called Sabine, where Sabine challenges Isabel’s attempts to draw comparisons between, essentially, slavery and the holocaust. I liked that the writing and the performances make you see things from both points of view, while also understanding why it angered Sabine.

There’s a lot to unpack in ‘Origin’ and I do think it suffers from doing a bit too much telling and not enough showing, with the flashbacks only partially aiding in that regard, which is always going to be a difficulty in a movie tackling such weighty themes. I also felt the personal elements, while tragic, didn’t really blend as well with the core story as well as intended, and that left some sections feeling a little flat – at a 140 minute runtime that was more noticeable as well. Ava DuVernay’s best film in my opinion is the documentary ‘13^th’ and it’s hard to escape the feeling that the documentary format is where she’s capable of producing her best work, where she can expand on the themes she wishes to explore without having to tie them to a conventional narrative.

‘Origin’ is a movie brimming with ideas and it provokes a lot of thoughts in its audience, but I felt it struggled to maintain momentum throughout and ultimately it is an interesting, but flawed work from Ava DuVernay.

Rating: 3/5

Directed By: Ava DuVernay

Starring: Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash, Emily Yancy, Finn Wittrock, Victoria Pedretti, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Isha Blaaker, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Connie Nielsen, Blair Underwood and Nick Offerman

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt13321244/