Grade: C+
It’s very easy to forget that everything we see in Origin was filmed in 2023 and late 2022 – and these people are just actors and extras. A few scenes must have been physically and emotionally exhausting to participate in. They look so authentic, you’d think you were watching old stock footage.
But I’m already jumping around, as this often haphazard, disjointed movie tends to do. We begin with the makings of a great story. I loved Will Smith in King Richard, but I’d like to put his onscreen wife’s name in my mouth. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, well-deservedly nominated for an Oscar for “Richard,” stars in Origin as Isabel Wilkerson. She’s a writer who is getting pressed for a new piece (about the Trayvon Martin shooting), but trying to be on hiatus to deal with family matters, such as putting her elderly mother in a home. She is so struck by what she finds in the Martin case, and after a couple of tragedies in her personal life, is inspired to write what would become Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
The film bounces around in time. Sometimes it is difficult to keep track of whether we are in the present, or if it’s another flashback. She’s married to Brett, a white man played here by Jon Bernthal, with approachable Paul Ruddish charm. We see them have their Meet Cute, then shortly after, it cuts to a marital argument. It’s a beautiful thing about relationships and life when you find someone you can be comfortable enough with to fight sometimes. These two scenes being in such close proximity is an effective narrative beat.
And that’s the most positive thing I can say about Origin. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is a national treasure and is wonderful here, but it may be a case of the character being so great that anybody could have played it well. It’s hard to screw up. Any compelling story that’s bubbling up gets thrown out the window, and the movie dives into a rabbit hole of mechanical research and talking points about racism and caste. Conversations worth having, to be sure, and this is a very smart movie – but it doesn’t take long for Origin to become some non-sequiturs in need of more sequiturs. The changes of location and other developments feel so random that it’s hard to tell that it’s the same movie we started with.
Origin is so heavy, so solemn, and so cerebral. It doesn’t breathe; it starts in a certain grave, serious tone, and stays there. There are excellent performances and other technical elements here, but ultimately it feels like being at school. It obviously has a brain, but not enough of a heart.
Grade: C+
Film Reviews by Mark 
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