The revenge plot of Is God Is revolves around twin sisters Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) who are summoned to their estranged mother's (Vivica A. Fox) home as she lies on her deathbed with simple instructions: Track down their abusive father (Sterling K. Brown) and kill him as payback for setting the three of them on fire before he walked out on the family roughly 20 years prior. After some initial reluctance to honor their mother's dying wish, the twins hit the road and attempt to locate their father by meeting with some other people that he was associated with in the years immediately following the incident (Erika Alexander, Mykelti Williamson). Eventually, they discover that he lives in a big house with a new wife (Janelle Monae) and twin sons (Xavier Mills, Justen Ross) and have to grapple with the high price that needs to be paid if they follow through on their plans to murder him.
What makes Is God Is such a distinct take on the revenge story is that it never shies away from the messy reality of the situation Racine and Anaia find themselves in. Their father may be a serial abuser who has zero remorse and endless justifications for his actions (Brown does a stellar job of infusing the character with the kind of coldly menacing monster energy that can be found in terrifying abundance in our world), but this mission reveals a darkness in them that they never had to confront before and the blood that ends up on their hands as a result of them going down this violent path will stick with them for the rest of their days. The thing about being a child of an abuser that nobody wants to discuss is that those monstrous qualities are also in your DNA. Those traits may manifest in different ways, but that evil exists within them and there's no running away from it no matter how hard they try. Being unafraid to grapple with the thorniness of this paradox is an act of unflinching honesty and the weight of this painful truth informs the dynamic shift that occurs as the film progresses. Having a bond that was strengthened by love and being there for each other in the face of decades of facing trauma together be challenged by being in a situation where they're the ones inflicting pain that's similar to what they've faced onto others brings forth an unfathomable ugliness and how Young and Johnson navigate the moral complexity of going from being victims of violence to the ones carrying it out is the most impressive aspect of their powerhouse performances that ask them to run through an intense emotional gauntlet from start to finish.
Remarkably, Is God Is originated as a stage production that was also written and directed by Harris. This story is so inherently cinematic in scope, look and feel that it's hard to conceive it being mounted in the confined space of a live theater. What makes the fluidity of its transition from stage to film even more impressive is that Harris had never worked as a writer or director on screen prior to this. Jumping into a new medium with such a strong overall clarity of vision-particularly once that is as emotionally and thematically dense as this-is a rare trait that speaks to how gifted Harris is as an artist. I don't know if Harris has any interest in making another film or quite frankly, will be able to secure the funding to do so given how little noise Is God Is is going to end up making at the box office (it'll be lucky to clear $5 mil domestic by the end of its run), but I'd run to watch any feature she was involved with in the future.
Grade: A-
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