THE STORY – Twin sisters with disfiguring burn scars are ordered by their bedridden mother to kill their abusive father, who caused their scars. They must decide whether to seek vengeance or find mercy.
THE CAST – Kara Young, Mallori Johnson, Janelle Monae, Erika Alexander, Mykelti Williamson, Josiah Cross, Vivica A. Fox & Sterling K. Brown
THE TEAM – Aleshea Harris (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 100 Minutes
Despite our better natures, revenge narratives have thrilled us pretty much since humans began telling stories. The ancient Greek tragedies and Alexandre Dumas’s “The Count of Monte Cristo” have been told and retold in countless forms since they were written centuries ago, never failing to move audiences with their primal power. Aleshea Harris’s “Is God Is,” adapted from her own award-winning stage play, is unlike any other revenge film you’ve ever seen, as much due to its unique tone and wide-ranging influences as because it focuses on two young women of color.
Twins Anaia (Mallori Johnson) and Racine (Kara Young) have been struggling. As with many twins, the girls share a deep bond (they can carry on entire conversations without speaking; cleverly placed subtitles translate their looks for the audience), but their bodies tell a deeper story: Racine has bad burn scars on her neck that extend down her arm and back, and Anaia has scars on her neck and arm that extend up to her face. While Anaia’s visible scars have made her softer and quieter, Racine’s lack of visible scarring has emboldened her to be meaner toward both of them. When they receive a letter from their mother (Vivica A. Fox) saying she’s on her deathbed, they make the trip down to the “Dirty South,” where she tells them the truth behind their scars: When the girls were young, their abusive father (Sterling K. Brown) snuck into their house, knocked her unconscious, and set her on fire in front of the girls, who got burned trying to save her. Anaia’s scars are worse because she refused to let go. God, as the girls call her (“She made us, didn’t she?” says Racine), makes one final request of her daughters: Kill the man who burned them all and left them for dead. And if they want to kill everything else he has along with him, that’s fine, too.
Racine seems pretty gung-ho about this divine mission, but Anaia has misgivings. However deserving their father may be of their vengeance, the girls aren’t killers, despite Racine’s insistence that she purposely drove one of their abusive foster fathers to an early grave. But they embark on the journey to kill their father anyway, tracking down his religious ex (Erika Alexander). This cowardly lawyer got him off after the fire (Mykelti Williamson), and his frightened, upper-class current wife (Janelle Monae) to find him. In the way of the best revenge pictures, each of them has a good reason to help the girls, but fears for their physical and spiritual safety while they pursue their revenge. Along the way, the girls debate the justice of their cause and whether they have the strength to carry out the deed. When they finally find their father, it’s not just their lives on the line, but their souls.
First-time director Harris takes many risks with both the screenplay and the visual style, creating a film that feels like nothing else. Rough around the edges in a way that feels purposeful, the film has a wild, untamed energy that extends beyond the screen, drawing the audience into its heightened world of religious allegory. Cribbing from Westerns, road movies, and Blaxploitation, in addition to other revenge pictures, Harris puts them all into a blender alongside her own unique spice. The result is a film that puts every other recent Tarantino wannabe to shame without ever feeling like it’s trying to imitate Tarantino itself. Harris is doing the same thing, even with some of Tarantino’s favorite genres, but the key difference lies in the worldviews through which they filter their similar influences. The proudly black, proudly feminine qualities of Harris’s writing give new dimensions to the familiar themes at play, while the rhythm of her distinctive dialogue drives the film forward, with electrifying editing to match. The boldness of Harris’s twisted tale comes through in the dialogue, as well – incredibly arch without ever feeling inhuman. Each character’s voice feels distinctive, with their own unique rhythms brought to raucous life by the terrifically talented troupe of performers.
While everyone other than Johnson and Young gets only one scene to make an impression, every single one of them grabs their moment by the throat and doesn’t let go until they exit the film. Alexander’s preacher woman is the best example of this, completely dominating the film for the entire time she’s onscreen. It’s a big performance, but exactly what the heightened dialogue demands. In roles that don’t require the same exuberance, Monae and Williamson find ways to blend their more low-key characters into this world, delivering highly stylized performances that remain grounded within the film’s established style.
Fox and Brown’s characters loom large over the film right from the beginning, and as performers with charisma to burn, they couldn’t be cast more effectively. Fox, relegated to a bed and with prosthetics and a mask covering most of her face, has to rely almost entirely on her voice and eyes, which she does with ruthless effectiveness. She exudes such power, even from her deathbed, that her mission for the girls really does feel like a holy mandate from on high. The fear that mixes into her voice when she tells the girls her story says everything needed to be said about the never-named man who ruined their lives. After being so thoroughly built up by every character for over half the film, Brown still manages to surprise and captivate when he finally appears in the film’s last act. Putting on a high-pitched voice and moving with a carefully calibrated pace, Brown is terrifyingly transfixing, a true monster in human form. His nonchalant presentation of his twisted worldview makes him one of cinema’s most despicable villains, and thanks to Brown’s mesmerizing performance, he’s also one of the most memorable, despite his limited screentime.
This is Johnson and Young’s film at the end of the day, though, and they lead it with effortless ease. Anaia and Racine are two sides of the same coin, and they lean into that; Johnson’s supple softness plays beautifully against Young’s brittle roughness. While the film builds a lot of tension from their opposing energies, it comes alive when they unite in their similarities. The two girls are twins, after all, and Johnson and Young make their invisible connection palpable. Their quietly expressive intensity would make their silent conversations understandable even without the subtitles, while their celebratory rowdiness in good times gives the film much of its unruly energy. Young, already a two-time Tony Award winner for her work onstage, sets the screen ablaze with her undeniable screen presence, bringing the wild side of the pair to vivid life. Anaia is the less showy role, but Johnson finds the roiling emotions hidden beneath Anaia’s conciliatory exterior. Given how she looks, Anaia has learned to recede into the background, but she has to work to keep her emotions in check, while Johnson is fully in touch with them at every moment. Both actresses make such an impact in their first leading film roles that more should follow.
The same is true of Harris. Her debut feature has no trace of fear, whether subject matter, stylistic flourishes, or heightened language. Not just anyone can adapt their own play to the screen, let alone direct it well, but Harris has both the vision and the ability to do so. Anyone can reference other films; it takes someone who really knows what they’re doing to create something that feels original out of those references. Harris accomplishes that, nodding to other films but always staying true to her own unique voice. “Is God Is” has an infectious, rambunctious energy that wraps you up in the drama and sweeps you along with every wave of emotion. Thanks to the fun that Harris injects throughout, whether it’s a moment of sisterly bonding or a moment of visual flair, it’s a bold, brutal blast, and one of the best debuts of the year. At the very least, it announces Aleshea Harris as a major new voice in cinema.
