Summary
BAFTA Award-winning writer-director Ava DuVernay’s first feature-length film since 2018,Originis a biographical drama that centers on Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), a real-life author and journalist who is perhaps best-known for writingThe Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. Although DuVernay’s last feature,A Wrinkle in Time, saw the filmmaker adapting a best-selling fantasy novel,DuVernay is no stranger to translating someone’s life story to the silver screen.Selma, the director’s 2014 Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated biopic about Martin Luther King Jr., was a breakout film.
On the television side of things, Ava Duvernay has helmed acclaimed projects that are similarly rooted in true stories, includingWhen They See UsandColin in Black & White. Before working on feature-length narrative movies, the director made documentary films. FromThis is the Lifeto13th, DuVernay shines light on stories and histories that need to be amplified.DuVernay’sOrigincontinues the acclaimed director’s trendby chronicling Isabel Wilkerson’s experience writing her 2020 nonfiction bookCaste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which portrays how racism in the US is an aspect of a caste system.
Origin Is Based On The True Story Of Isabel Wilkerson’s Life
The Journalist At The Center Of DuVernay’s Film Is A Pulitzer Prize Winner
After premiering at the 80th Venice International Film Festival in 2023,Origingarnered positive reviews ahead of its 2024 theatrical release. Now,Ava DuVernay’s movie boasts a 97% Rotten Tomatoesin the audience review category as well. Despite the acclaim,there’s no denying thatOriginis an ambitious project — partly because the film’s subject, Isabel Wilkerson, is also a storyteller. Born in Washington, D.C. in 1961, Wilkerson studied journalism at Howard University. Notably, she became the first Black American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism, which she won while working forThe New York Times.
In 1994, Wilkerson became the first Black American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism for her profile of a 10-year-old boy grappling with 1993’s harsh Midwestern floods.
In 2010,the journalist-turned-author published her first book,The Warmth of Other Suns, after 15 years spent thoroughly researching and writing about America’s Great Migration— one of the largest movements of people in United States history. While Wilkerson interviewed thousands of people to bolster her research with personal stories, roughly 6 million Black people left the American South for Northern, Midwestern, and Western states during the Great Migration, which began in the 1910s and lasted until the 1970s. An instant bestseller,The Warmth of Other Sunscemented Wilkerson’s place as a prominent voice outside of journalism too.
Origin Follows Isabel Wilkerson’s Journey To Write Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
DuVernay’s Ambitious Film Blends History With Personal Narrative
As with many of her projects, DuVernay saw the urgency in tellingIsabel Wilkerson’s story in the ever-engagingOrigin. Just a few months after Wilkerson published her second book,Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Netflix announced that Ava DuVernay would direct a film about the project and its author. InCaste, Wilkerson posits that the United States' racial stratification is best understood as a kind of caste system — itself a social stratification defined by hierarchical thinking. As in real life,Origin’s Isabel begins work onCasteamid her husband Brett Hamilton’s (Jon Bernthal) death in 2015.
…[Wilkerson] explores the ways in which race might not be the sole determining factor when it comes to bigotry.
While grappling with Brett’s tragic passing — as well as other personal losses — Isabel is asked for her opinion on the murder of Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost), prompting her to explore the ways in which race might not be the sole determining factor when it comes to bigotry. Throughout the film, Isabel Wilkerson travels to places like Germany and India to research past instances of bigotry and the ways in which different types of bigotry both interrelate or influence each other.To authentically capture the real-life author’s experience of writingCaste,Originblends history, subjectivity, and personal narrative.
How Origin Compares To The True Story & What It Changes
An incredibly ambitious film,Originnot only makes the experience of penning a book engaging, but tackles challenging and thought-provoking subjects. To translate Wilkerson’sCasteto the screen — as well as her journey in formulating her core thesis —Originbrings anecdotes and historical events to life to support. These dramatic recreations and flashbacks, which span different time periods and countries, effectively illustrate the argument Wilkerson puts forth inCaste. While the details of Isabel Wilkerson’s personal life and writing journey may not be entirely accurate,Origin’s approach brings an authenticity to the experience of penning a book.
Origin
Based on the life and the book of Isabel Wilkerson, Origin is a biographical drama film by writer-director Ava DuVernay. Isabel, contending with tragedy in her own life, sets off on a journey of self-discovery and inspiration to craft her award-winning book,Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.
