‘Is God Is’ Review

‘Is God Is’, the directorial debut from playwright Aleshea Harris, is a stylish and trauma-laced revenge thriller that is very close to being a great movie yet never seems to decide whether it wants to be more ‘Kill Bill’ or ‘The Blues Brothers’, resulting in a morally uncomfortable muddle.

Racine and Anaia (Kara Young and Mallori Johnson) are twin sisters living a life on the margins, never fully overcoming a horrible fire from their childhood that has left them both disfigured. Anaia has coped with this trauma by retreating inwards, lacking confidence and being deemed too emotional while Racine has enough anger for the both of them. Out of the blue, Racine receives a letter from their long lost mother (Vivica A. Fox) who invites them to her deathbed to let them know that the fire that forever altered their lives was no accident, it was an intentional act from their abusive father (Sterling K. Brown), who changed his name and moved on with his life as if nothing happened. Their mother leaves them with one dying request: make their daddy dead. Real dead.

What follows is a peculiar road movie cum revenge thriller, that is tonally inconsistent, with some scenes of stark, emotional violence and others of broad comedy. The sisters take to calling their mother God given that without her there would be no them, and consequently tell those they encounter that they’re on a mission from God. From scene to scene, you never know what you’re going to get, which can be thrilling in its own way but becomes misguided and uneasy once our characters cross the moral Rubicon, only to then be presented with some lighthearted humor almost immediately afterwards.

In so many moments, ‘Is God Is’ edges oh so close to being morally complex, provocative and nuanced only to pull back at the last second, favoring instead a more crowd-pleasing hero’s journey of revenge against a big bad, replete with climactic fight scenes. Through dialogue, we get glimpses of more challenging questions about how revenge curdles the soul, about what we owe our parents, our sisters. And yet these thoughts are left only shallowly explored, with each moment that could be an opportunity for deeper character and moral study instead breezed past and justified by later events.

While ‘Is God Is’ never realizes its full potential as a subversive take on toxic revenge, the film displays enough style and strength from its director and stars that I will eagerly look ahead to see what they do next.

Is God Is
Rated R for strong/bloody violence and language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes

Director Aleshea Harris
Writers Aleshea Harris
Stars Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, Janelle Monáe, Erika Alexander, Mykelti Williamson, Josiah Cross, Vivica A. Fox, Sterling K. Brown
Rating R
Running Time 100 Minutes
Genres Drama, Mystery, Western