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With: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Niecy Nash-Betts, Emily Yancy, Finn Wittrock, Victoria Pedretti, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Isha Blaaker, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Connie Nielsen, Blair Underwood, Nick Offerman, Stephanie March, Myles Frost, Suraj Yengde, Donna Mills, Jordan Lloyd, Franz Hartwig, Daniel Lommatzsch, Gaurav J. Pathania
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Written by: Ava DuVernay, Isabel Wilkerson
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Directed by: Ava DuVernay
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic material involving racism, violence, some disturbing images, language and smoking
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Running Time: 135
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Date: 01/19/2024
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Caste Aways
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
Ava DuVernay's Origin is a smart film, a film whose ideas should be taught in classrooms, and should be available to and understood by everyone. But it's also not particularly cinematic or consistent; it's often electric, but also often inert. It's based on the nonfiction book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, which argues that slavery in America is not based on racism, but on the idea of caste, which creates hierarchies and banishes certain citizens to the lower levels. It compares slavery in America to the Holocaust in Germany, claiming that the systems behind both are similar. In the film, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor beautifully plays Wilkerson, deciding bit by bit to embark upon the book as the ideas take hold in her head, but doing so while mourning the tragic death of her beloved husband (Jon Bernthal). Perhaps if DuVernay had been able to make more of a hybrid documentary/feature, the film could have been more immersive, but as talky as it is — not to mention that it runs a bulky 135 minutes — it's too stop-and-start to be truly successful.
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