Origin: Movie Review

Cast: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Nick Offerman

Director: Ava DuVernay

More like a TED talk than an actual narratively connected film, Ava DuVernay's occasionally didactic take on author Isabel Wilkerson's seminal book "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" does make a strong case for her theory about racism being part of the caste system.

But DuVernay's occasionally aloof and at times dense film does require a lot of its viewers as it traverses both Wilkerson's life and her theory.

Ellis-Taylor delivers an approachable and watchable performance as Wilkerson as she endures tragedy in her own life, but despite this, the film is less interested in the personal and more concerned with the theory espoused - and no matter how richly it looks on screen, the film somehow manages to maintain an emotional aloofness despite what could be emotive edges.

Perhaps more successful are the moments between Ellis-Taylor and Bernthal, though for obvious reasons those are shortened in the overall film's construction. But it's here they bristle with humanity and warmth.

The rest of the film though lacks subtlety and becomes more of a test of the theories Wilkerson has adopted and has researched. It helps little that a rousing score is deployed at opportune moments to boost its poignancy and while that occasionally is no bad thing, it does leave a feeling the audience can't be relied on to make their own judgement calls.

Ulitmately Origin will test some viewers' resolve; in parts, it offers glimpses of what could be a movie more aimed at presenting a stronger and more urgent message to support its theories. But in others, its lack of subtlety proves to be almost fatal. It has important messages to say, and in parts does it well enough.

Stylistically, Origin represents something different and while it's not entirely successful throughout, a rousing over-the-credits film by New Zealander Stan Walker delivers as much as power as should be mustered throughout.