Aunjanue Ellis Spectacularly Encapsulates Isabel Wilkerson in Origin

Racism is the primary language to understand everything.  It’s a language that permeates and lingers within humanity down to it core.  What happens when that language is dissected, questioned, investigated and delivered like a new born baby for the masses to accept or reject as they see fit?

In 2020, as the world dealt with the fall out of a global pandemic, Isabel Wilkerson was about to unleash a project that would excite some and outrage others. This lauded, applauded and Pulitzer Prize winning author released her New York Times Bestselling  “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” igniting a conversation long overdue on racism and it’s undercover origins.  Wilkerson describes caste a hierarchy system which aids and determines standing and respect within communities, assumptions of beauty and competence, and who gets the benefit of the doubt and access to resources.  Her thesis breaks down this system within the Indian, Neo-Nazi and American cultures through a series of pillars ultimately discovering that one can not live their lives based on what’s intimidating to other people.

Award-winning director Ava DuVernay, known for embracing difficult cultural conversations via her cinematic vision, brings Wilkerson’s theories to the screen with the amazingly gifted Aunjanue Ellis taking on the role of Isabel. “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” first came to my attention on a date with via one of the many mobile dating apps.  If, I’m being honest, the only good thing that came out of that meeting was the recommendation of this book which has enlightened me in ways I never saw coming.

As DuVernay takes us on Isabel’s quest learning the separation of races basically boils down to one race feeling superior over another with a series of images including a reactionary difference between when a Natchez County Sheriff rides through a white neighborhood met with smiles and cheers versus a black neighborhood where the residents freeze in sheer terror of what may happen.  The audience also becomes privy to how the pillars of endogamy, dehumanization and inherent superiority/inferiority, treating other races as a soulless animals and not human have a voice in caste.

Ultimately, illustrating that racism doesn’t really matter in order for the caste system to work and learning that a world without caste would set every human being free.  Instead, we continue to be judged on the very things we can’t change – signposts on our bodies that will never go away.  You don’t escape trauma by ignoring it, you espcape trauma by acknowledging it.  This message and dramatization is necessary and needed now more than ever as we face a country on the brink of destruction rotting from the inside out.

Aunjanue Ellis never disappoints within any character she depicts onscreen and this time is no different.  Classy, elegant yet stern and subtle when the role calls for such – Ellis portrays Wilkerson who lived her life despite the system she was born into.  She allowed herself to love regardless of race and carried on with life despite insurmountable loss along the way.  Jon Bernthal is perfection as Brett Hamilton. He and Ellis have an ease and comfortability which would lead one to believe they were a real life couple.

Origin will ruffle feathers and make folks uncomfortable.  It’s supposed to be uncomfortable.  A truth that is hard to swallow usually is, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it in, ponder and embrace what that truth is trying to cure. If anyone had to do it I’m glad it was Ava DuVernay. In my opinion, she is pretty much one of a handful of filmmakers in the Hollywood system brave enough to tackle such sensitive material unapologetically for the culture.  For that we thank and applaud your courage for staying true blue to our culture in the cinematic landscape…always.