Parents' Guide to Origin

This powerful drama explores how Isabel Wilkerson made compelling connections between the United States' institutional racism and the evils of other caste systems. Ellis-Taylor gives an excellent, nuanced performance as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Isabel. She evocatively conveys the lasting effects of heartrending grief and passionate discussion. And the script deals with heavy themes and lessons without being overly preachy. DuVernay doesn't shy away from the atrocities committed in the name of preserving caste systems, but she also packs a punch without gratuitous violence. There are many necessary but disturbing scenes of inequality and cruelty used to convey traumatic experiences, from the heartbreak of a young Black boy looking on longingly as his White friends enjoy a pool he's barred from, to Nazis separating parents from crying children and White Southerners picnicking at an afternoon lynching. Supporting Ellis-Taylor's foundational performance is a memorable cast, including Bernthal as Isabel's devoted husband, Niecy Nash as her encouraging cousin, and Yancy as her mother. Audra McDonald has a small but memorable role as a woman whose Alabama-born father named her Miss to force White people to call her the honorific that Black women were always denied in the Jim Crow South.

Part biopic, part history lesson, Origin will make many viewers want to read and research the people and stories it depicts, whether it's August and Irma Landmesser—the German couple who defied Hitler's intermarriage laws—or the incredible, prescient 1930s research exploring race in the Deep South. In the section about Dalits in India, real-life Harvard scholar Suraj Yengde plays himself as Isabel's guide to learning about the history of Dalit activism. There's a lot to take in here, but for those who are willing to experience some discomfort and sadness, Origin is a beautifully performed, thought-provoking movie.