''I Origins'' is a 2014 American

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

romantic drama Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their journey ...

film written and directed by Mike Cahill. The independent production premiered at the

2014 Sundance Film Festival The 2014 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 16, 2014 until January 26, 2014 in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Ogden, and Sundance Resort in Utah. The festival opened with '' Whiplash'' directed by D ...

on , 2014. It is distributed by

Fox Searchlight Pictures Searchlight Pictures, Inc. is an American film production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is part of the Walt Disney Company. Founded in 1994 as Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc. for 20th Century Fox (later 20th Century Stu ...

, and opened in limited release on , 2014. It won the Best Feature Length Film Award at the

Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya The Sitges Film Festival ( ca, Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya, links=no) is an annual film festival held in Sitges, Spain, specialized in fantasy and horror films, of which it is considered one of the world's foremost in ...

on October 11, 2014.

Plot

A Ph.D. student, Ian Gray, is researching the

evolution of the eye Many scientists have found the evolution of the eye attractive to study because the eye distinctively exemplifies an convergent evolution, analogous organ (anatomy), organ found in many Taxon, animal forms. Simple light detection is found in bac ...

with research partner, Kenny, and first-year lab assistant, Karen. At a Halloween party Gray encounters Sofi, a young woman masked with only hazel-speckled, ash-blue eyes visible. She later leads him into the washroom to have sex before abruptly leaving. Mysterious synchronicities, like the recurring number 11, guide Gray to a billboard on which he recognizes Sofi's eyes. Eventually he sees her on a train. They begin a relationship although his rationalism clashes with her fey spirituality. One day they spontaneously agree to marry but must wait a day for a license. Disappointed, they walk out of the registry office. Ian gets a call from Karen. She has found a blind worm—''

Eisenia fetida ''Eisenia fetida'', known under various common names such as manure worm, redworm, brandling worm, panfish worm, trout worm, tiger worm, red wiggler worm, etc., is a species of earthworm adapted to decaying organic material. These worms thrive i ...

''—with the DNA necessary to develop an eye. Ian takes Sofi to the lab with him. Karen leaves while Sofi is upset by the research they are doing. Ian accidentally splashes his eyes with formaldehyde. They call Karen, who administers first aid. Sofi takes Ian home. On the way up, Sofi's lower half is chopped off in an elevator accident. The film flashes forward seven years. Ian has written an eye evolution book and is now married to pregnant Karen. When their baby is born, the hospital takes an iris scan of baby Tobias' eyes. The results are entered in the database and the program identifies the baby as a certain Paul Edgar Dairy. The nurse re-enters the results, thinking it is a glitch, and the problem disappears. A few months later, a Dr. Simmons calls, recommending further testing the baby. The test involves seemingly random photographs. Ian and Karen become suspicious. He tracks some pictures from the test to Idaho and the family of Paul Edgar Dairy, who had died just before their baby was conceived. Kenny is now creator of the iris scan database used to store Tobias' scan, and Kenny reveals that Dr. Simmons is in fact one of only five people with full access to the database. As a test, he helps Ian and Karen run some photos of deceased family members, plus various other people's eyes through the database to see if there are any other recent matches. They get a hit for Sofi, whose iris scan matches one made in India just three months prior, years after Sofi's death. Ian goes to India to find the subject of this scan, an orphan girl named Salomina. With help from Priya Varma, he spends weeks searching and putting up billboards. Eventually he finds the little girl staring at the billboard. He takes Salomina back to his hotel and contacts Karen over Skype. The two of them conduct a simple test designed to reveal if Salomina might be somehow linked with Sofi's memories. The results match the probable range of random chance, with a 44% success score. Feeling somewhat disheartened, Ian intends to take Salomina to Priya. But when they reach the elevator, the moment the doors open Salomina panics and throws herself into his arms, too frightened to enter. Staring into each other's eyes with a certain recognition, they then cling to each other, tears streaming down both their faces. He picks her up and takes her down the stairs instead, with Salomina tightly gripping his neck, till they walk from the dark interior and step out into the light. A

post-credits scene A post-credits scene (commonly referred to as a stinger or credit cookie) or mid-credits scene is a short clip that appears after all or some of the closing credits have rolled and sometimes after a production logo of a film, TV series, or video g ...

shows Dr. Simmons scanning the irises of famous deceased figures finding many such matches.

Cast

Michael Pitt Michael Carmen Pitt (born April 10, 1981) is an American actor, model, and musician. Pitt is known in film for his roles in '' Murder by Numbers'' (2002), Bernardo Bertolucci's '' The Dreamers'' (2003), Gus Van Sant's '' Last Days'' (2005), and M ...

as Ian Gray * Brit Marling as Karen *

Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey (born 26 May 1986) is a French-Spanish actress and model. She is best known for playing Suzanne in '' The Sea Wall'', the mermaid Syrena in '' Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides'' and Sofi in ''I Origins''. She a ...

as Sofi Elizondo * Steven Yeun as Kenny *

Archie Panjabi Archana Panjabi (born 31 May 1972) is a British actress. She has had various roles in both UK and US television including as Maya Roy in ''Life on Mars'' (2006–07), Nas Kamal in NBC crime drama '' Blindspot'' (2016–17, 2020), Kendra Malle ...

as Priya Varma *

Cara Seymour Cara Seymour (born 6 January 1964) is a British actress from Essex, England. She has appeared in films such as ''You've Got Mail'', '' American Psycho'', '' Adaptation'', '' Dancer in the Dark'', ''Gangs of New York'', '' Hotel Rwanda'', '' Th ...

as Dr. Jane Simmons *

Venida Evans Venida Evans is an American television, film, stage and commercial actress. Evans is perhaps best known to audiences for her role as " The Muse" in a series of IKEA television commercials in the United States beginning in 2008. Personal life Ev ...

as Margaret Dairy *

William Mapother William Reibert Mapother Jr. (; born April 17, 1965) is an American actor, known for his role as Ethan Rom on the television series ''Lost'' and starring in the film '' In the Bedroom''. He is also known for the film ''Another Earth''. Personal ...

as Darryl Mackenzie * Kashish Kumari as Salomina * Ako as Nurse

Production

''I Origins'' was the second feature film by writer-director Mike Cahill after his earlier independent science fiction-drama, ''

Another Earth Another or variant may refer to: * anOther or Another Magazine, culture and fashion magazine * ''Another'' (novel), a Japanese horror novel ** ''Another'' (film), a Japanese 2012 live-action film based on the novel * Another River, a river in th ...

'' (2011), also with actress Brit Marling. Cahill sold the film rights to ''Another Earth'' to

at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. At that time he also sold a screenplay to what would be his next feature film titled ''I''. Though during the development of ''I'', after failing to "crack" some aspects of the story, Cahill instead decided to make an origin story for the film, in which he had a "rich back story for". Although Fox Searchlight owned the rights to any prequels or sequels to the ''I'' script, Cahill decided to make ''I Origins'' independently. He intended to sell the film at the Sundance Film Festival, like he did for ''Another Earth''. Fox Searchlight agreed and the film was produced by Verisimilitude and WeWork Studios in association with Bersin Pictures and Penny Jane Films. After the premiere of ''I Origins'' at the

, Fox Searchlight ended up buying the rights to the film.

Release

''I Origins''

premiered A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its first ...

at the

on , 2014. After its premiere,

bought rights to worldwide distribution of the film. The film won the festival's Alfred P. Sloan Prize, which recognizes films that depict science and technology. The win was Cahill's second; his film ''

'' also won the prize in 2011. ''I Origins'' also screened at the

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

-based BAMcinemaFest and at the Nantucket Film Festival, both in late June 2014. ''I Origins'' began its

limited theatrical release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

on , 2014 in just four theaters. The following week, it expanded to 76 theaters.

Reception

''I Origins'' received mixed reviews from critics.

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

gave the film a rating of 53%, based on 100 reviews, with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 6/10. The site's consensus states: "Writer-director Mike Cahill remains an intriguingly ambitious talent, but with the uneven sci-fi drama ''I Origins'', his reach exceeds his grasp". On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a score of 57 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Jordan Zakarin, of entertainment and media news website

TheWrap ''TheWrap'' is an American online news website covering the business of entertainment and media via digital, print and live events. It was founded by journalist Sharon Waxman Sharon I. Waxman (born c.1963) is an American author, journalist, ...

, said that "The movie starts as a love story and then morphs into a thriller, propelled always by the push and pull of faith and logic, with tragedy shifting world views over time". He continued, saying that "The message is both micro and macro, aimed at the renewed war in the United States over issues like science education and contraception, as well as Cahill's way of working out his own mixed emotions".

Sequel

''I Origins'' was developed as a prequel to ''I'', a screenplay which Cahill sold to

in 2011. Cahill intended for ''I'' to take place twenty years after the event of ''I Origins'', after the repercussions of Dr. Ian Gray’s discoveries take hold, as teased in the post-credits of the film. During press interviews for the film, Cahill spoke of plans to go ahead with a sequel to ''I Origins'', saying "There's a sequel in the works. It's not scripted. We're not in production yet, but we set up at Fox Searchlight".

References

External links

* * * * * {{Metacritic film 2014 films 2014 independent films 2010s science fiction drama films American science fiction drama films Alfred P. Sloan Prize winners American independent films Sundance Film Festival award winners Films set in 2006 Films set in 2013 Films set in 2014 Films set in Delhi Films set in Connecticut Films set in Idaho Films set in New York City Films about reincarnation Fox Searchlight Pictures films Films directed by Mike Cahill 2014 drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films