Origin (2023)

Origin tries to turn a book of big ideas into a movie, and some stretches explain more than they dramatize. Then Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor carries it home with a performance critics called stunning. She plays Isabel Wilkerson, a writer who, after the killing of Trayvon Martin, starts chasing a bigger question: why do people sort each other into higher and lower ranks, even where race can’t explain it? Her research takes her to archives in Germany and to India, while at home she loses her husband Brett, her mother and her cousin Marion. Ava DuVernay braids the grief and the research together, shot on 16mm, and Audra McDonald’s scene as Miss Hale is the most moving thing in it. Some critics wished it were a documentary, and it does reach for a lot at once. A 7.7 because its heart is enormous and its ambition only sometimes trips it. $654.72 says you finish the credits and put Caste at the top of your reading list before you even stand up.

What works: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is extraordinary, and the way the film weaves Isabel’s grief into her research gives the ideas a human pulse.

What doesn’t: It tries to cover so much history and theory that some scenes feel like a lecture, and the mix of styles doesn’t always hold together.

Who it’s for: Readers, students and anyone who likes ambitious, thoughtful dramas that leave you with a lot to talk about.