Origin

It wouldn’t have taken much for Ava DuVernay to bounce back after 2018’s disastrous A Wrinkle in Time. But the extent to which she rights the proverbial ship with Origin reaffirms her status as a major talent and proves that her filmmaking strengths truly lie in social justice narratives.

The writer/director’s fact-based chronicle of how Isabel Wilkerson came to research and pen the award-winning book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020) inspires career-best work from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (King Richard) as the celebrated author and miraculously presents a wealth of detailed, academic information without feeling like a dry lecture.

DuVernay’s mastery is felt in Origin’s opening scene when it dawns on viewers that she’s dramatizing the murder of Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost), and that command carries through as Isabel figures out how to follow up her best-seller The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.

Though she receives plenty of intriguing offers and becomes increasingly invested in the plight of minorities in the U.S., no project quite grabs Isabel on a visceral level. Further complicating matters is sudden personal tragedy, the aftermath of which DuVernay conveys in beautiful yet devastating scenes of dreamlike arrested development as Isabel processes a double-whammy of blindsiding grief.

Though the random appearance of Nick Offerman as a Trump-loving plumber is as glaringly disruptive as his red MAGA hat, Origin otherwise keeps a steady flow as Isabel finds renewed purpose in her life, travels the globe, and shares provocative yet respectful discussions with educated friends and colleagues.

Through these connections, she develops a hypothesis about the roots of global inequity and how systems of hate are perpetuated by different cultures, often inspiring each other to disenfranchise their targeted populations through overlapping approaches. As her thesis coalesces, Origin builds to a stunning climax in which Isabel’s findings are shared in a swirl of cinematic wonder while DuVernay combines visual, musical, and technical elements to symphonic ends.

This satisfying end elevates the film to DuVernay’s best narrative effort and challenges the powerful, necessary 13th for her top overall creation. That it wasn’t nominated for a single Academy Award is a tragedy in its own right.

Grade: A-minus. Rated R. Now playing at Grail Moviehouse

(Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Neon)