“Origin” (2023) is a dramatization of the events leading up to real-life author, journalist and (the first Black woman) Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s second nonfiction book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Isabel, who turns down an assignment to write about the murder of Trayvon Martin so she can devote more time to caring for her elderly mother, Ruby (Emily Yancy), but her adoring husband, Brett (Jon Bernthal), encourages her to return to work, especially because her research could change the world. After Isabel suffers two tragic blows, reminiscent of the devastation that Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking” experienced, Isabel dives back into work to recover from grief, establish a new normal and connect with others. Her research takes her on an international search linking racism in the US, the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and the caste system in India. Her quest reminds her that she is not alone and reinvigorates her enough to face another impending loss with grace and gratitude.

“Origin” is more biographical than an adaptation of Wilkerson’s book, and Ellis-Taylor carries the film with a character actor’s skill and a star’s magnetism. There are few movies centered around geniuses who are women, especially living ones, and even fewer films about women with supportive families encouraging them to work outside the home, not primarily be caretakers and wives at home. Isabel is a counter cultural figure in the way that work does not isolate her from others, and she occupies spheres normally reserved for men while being utterly feminine. She wears long-flowing dresses and skirts, has long hair, wears makeup, is soft-spoken. She is a particularly riveting protagonist considering that 2023 is the year of the fictional writer such as the nebbish professor without talent in “Dream Scenario” (2023) or the talented, but unrewarded writer in “American Fiction” (2023). In this film about an actual writer, talent has no ego, and Isabel is only concerned about the work. She has achieved success but does not care about her status except for how it affects her on a practical level, which does not include financial benefits despite all appearances to the contrary. If the film has a flaw, it does not show the math of how she can appear resplendent but be stressed about finances.

“Origin” is a film pumping with love as its life blood. Even as “The Punisher” when he was not the embodiment of rage, Bernthal is able to turn on his affable side and immediately create an atmosphere of warmth, acceptance and camaraderie with everyone and anyone. Bernthal delivers a tender and sensitive performance proving that he has plenty of range and nuance beyond the skull crushing roles that he is best known for. Brett is a welcome addition to 2023, a great year of paragon husbands: “Past Lives” (2023), “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” (2023) and “You Hurt My Feelings” (2023). Brett may be in the lead as someone who balances traditional masculine roles of using his physical strength and maintenance skills while simultaneously being nurturing and loving to his wife and her family. He is loquacious with her family and carries the emotional labor of managing the home and catering to his wife’s needs: keeping track of his wife’s keys and plane tickets. It is refreshing to see images of marital love rooted in quotidian realities instead of the unrealistic, unsustainable love stories that start with the meet cute and end with the engagement. He is her plus one, and he makes it possible for her to be in the spotlight, a role that normally wives accept. His career is referenced once in passing. His family defines him. Brett anchors the love story.

“Origin” depicts writing and genius as a communal act impossible without an editor. At Isabel’s first gala after her tragic losses, she first voices her idea to her editor, Kate (Vera Farmiga), and Binky (Stephanie March). The idea’s substance is sound, Ellis-Taylor’s tone and movements are heightened and could lead to an insensitive listener dismissing her idea as too emotional. Kate responds, “Well, that’s the writer’s journey sorting all of that out. There’s a lot going on in that big brain of yours. I love that. I love it, but I’ve got to be honest with you. I don’t understand….I don’t see it…yet, but if you can make people see it, that is an incredible book.” Farmiga finds a way to express doubt, acceptance, and faith in her voice. These words are encouraging, and Kate makes brief appearances in every act as someone who holds space and supports Isabel’s choices and journey even if it is beyond her understanding. Their last appearance together is a beautiful mirroring moment of wordless, sympathetic, shared partnership. Kate only needs to understand Isabel.

Niecy Nash-Betts is another character actor who is better known for her more popular, comedic ventures. Nash-Betts, the definition of a brick house, hides her light under a bushel to play Isabel’s supportive cousin Marion, an every woman who unlocks Isabel’s creative juices. After Isabel restricts her work to fellow scholars in Germany, and German friends/colleagues doubt the foundation of her work, Marion inspires her to not cling too fiercely to the language of academia, but to find down-to-earth ways to communicate and relate to people. This instruction helps Isabel recover from the brief setback in Germany and influences the way that Isabel conducts interviews in the US and India. She strays from libraries and memorials and meets people in comfortable spaces, their homes, outdoors, bazaars, making her interviewees feel more like lifelong friends than those Germans who invited her into their home.

Isabel starts her new practice with Miss Hale (Audra McDonald), but the interview is not a one-way street. It becomes a transformative and healing moment as Miss Hale questions Isabel about her loss, which DuVernay overlays with a montage of loving acts. The Dalit scholar Suraj Yengde, who plays himself in “Origin” and is a natural, feels more as if he is another cousin delighted at the opportunity to host in person and stop limiting their interaction to virtual forums. Also another standout is Snehalata Siddarth Tagde, who plays Yengde’s colleague, Dr. Jajula Z. Valicharla, who along with Yengde, make Isabel aware of the fact that she is not the first person to see the link between different forms of oppression, but one in a long line of people trying to keep this scholarship and connection between nations and eras alive. These exchanges are not dispassionate or dull, but emotional, rigorous exchanges.

History stops becoming something that Isabel reads about and imagines. DuVernay uses Isabel’s imagination as a jumping off point to recreate historical events or see them as they unfold. If Terrence Malick had directed “The Big Short (2015), which makes a subject palatable and entertaining to reach a broader audience than a documentary could, but instead of covering Wall Street, the movie delved into the unfortunate universal phenomenon of hate, then this lyrical, ambitious, and challenging feature would be the result. It is also reminiscent of films trying to find a visual language to convey how geniuses think. DuVernay’s interpretation is less abstract than Christopher Nolan’ “Oppenheimer” (2023) but is no less innovative as it morphs from simple flashbacks and become interactive, immersive experiences. In contrast with Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” (2023), DuVernay mostly focuses on the people whom Isabel relates to, history’s witnesses, the underdogs, their lives, starting with Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost). The only time that DuVernay primarily focuses on the perpetrators is to refute those who doubt Isabel’s thesis. After her trip to India, Isabel attains her goal of entering the story, which gives her a way to transcend mortal limits.

DuVernay’s early depictions of death are oneiric, autumnal images separating Isabel from her loved ones with everything moving in slow motion until time stands still. Isabel lies facing them as a moment of farewell, meeting them where they are, lying engulfed in darkness before they disappear. It is supposed to evoke her last moment with each of her loved ones but is also a visual rendition of “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” a sea of brown leaves.  After India, death is represented similarly with Isabel lying and facing the deceased except it is in the daytime on a bright summer day, and a person whom she never knew. Eventually DuVernay changes her depiction of deceased historical figures from remote figures in Isabel’s mind into an encouraging procession lining either side of her as she walks down the front walkway: Elizabeth (Jasmine Cephas Jones) and Allison Davis (Isha Blaaker), Irma Eckler (Victoria Pedrretti) and August Landmesser (Finn Wittrock), Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar (Gaurav J. Pathania) and Trayvon Martin (Myles Frost).

Discovering her connection to deceased strangers destroys death’s power and reminds Isabel that she has not lost her departed loved ones. This ephemeral element of love, the wine served in a communion of saints, living and dead, sustains Isabel as she struggles with grief and loss. It is possible for the living and dead to be together. Isabel creates that space through her work and mind, which reunites her with her with her departed loved ones.

While at an exhibit devoted to the Holocaust, Isabel reads a quote, “What is my life worth even if I remain alive? Whom to return to in my old hometown of Warsaw? For what and for whom do I carry on this whole pursuit of life, enduring, holding out – for what?!” She sees fellow museumgoers comforting each other while she stands alone. Even a hopeless, solitary life is not truly solitary. She will carry on and bring the dead into the present, and they will live in her. And the implication is that just as she never even knew of Dr. Ambedkar, but continued his work, when she dies, someone will resurrect her and all that she loved. It is the eternity of the mind, scholarship, truth that saves “Origin” from being a depressing slog even when DuVernay unflinchingly portrays scenes from the Middle Passage, the Holocaust and the degradation of the Dalits. Those scenes of pain humanize the victims by using Isabel’s narration to remind us of their past loving relationships and their individuality, their humanity and backstories. Their shapeless screams of pain are not interchangeable, but are individuated, a protest, given intelligible shape through Isabel’s words. DuVernay depicts the Dalits’ plight with love as they caress each other with oil before entering the manmade morass. Their silent stroking evokes the wordless imagery of eternal love in “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” (2023).

“You don’t escape trauma by ignoring it. You escape trauma by confronting it.” The story of Trayvon Martin, the axis upon which “Origin” turns, becomes a story of triumph. In film, DuVernay denies eternal life to Martin’s murderer by never using his name or showing the actor who played him. By engaging in inhumane acts that erase others’ uniqueness, he suffers the same fate by joining a monolith of hate with no remarkable characteristics or love to keep his memory alive whereas Martin remains alive in the memory of the hearts of millions who never knew him.