Origin

This audacious and ambitious film swings for the fences and misses.

It’s hardly new news, but DuVernay takes a very long time to spell it out.

There is a personal side to Wilkerson’s story that the director and cast skilfully interweave.

Bearing similar levels of gravity and substance to her Netflix documentary 13th, Origin is arguably DuVernay’s most emotionally complex work to date.

For all its flaws, however, Origin does have power as both didactic treatise and drama of recovery. There is something reassuring being said here about the restorative power of work.

This is the biography of a book... The fact that it works as well as it does, it's pretty remarkable.

Origin is an impactful biographical drama that should be a requirement in teaching history. The deeply moving and gut-wrenching film is extremely powerful with its use of sound and imagery to evoke emotions of trauma, loss and tragedy throughout history.

Wilkerson’s personal story in this narrative format adds fascinating subtext about generational guilt and the responsibilities to continue fighting for justice against the caste systems that still plague the world.

One question repeated at various points in the film carries relevance here: How does this all fit together? Plot twist: it doesn't.

Origin will go far in reaching those who seek to understand if there is indeed some unifying root cause for hatred and discrimination all across the world.