“Is God Is” is Righteous, Burning Fury
Playwright Aleshea Harris’ Is God Is won three Obie Awards in 2018. One for Harris’ writing, another for Taibi Magar’s directing, and a final acting award for Alfie Fuller and Dame-Jasmine Hughes. Eight years later, Harris finds herself in the director’s chair as Is God Is gets the silver screen treatment, marking her directorial debut. The film is a revenge story that borrows from lyrical Greek mythology, Biblical imagery, and a righteous sense of anger that fuels the entirety of Is God Is.
Twins, for everything they have in common, are still their own separate beings. Parts of their lives are intrinsically tied together and others are unrecognizably foreign. When the twins of Is God Is are introduced, they’re given simple descriptors. Racine the Rough One (Kara Young) and Anaia the Quiet One (Mallori Johnson), twin sisters who have been left scarred after their father (Sterling K. Brown) set fire to their mother (Vivica A. Fox). They grew up under the impression that their mother died in that fire, but when they receive a letter asking them to visit her on her deathbed, Racine and Anaia make the trek. Their mother, who Racine refers to as God, tells them that she needs them to kill their father.
Is God Is is an odyssey. Like the original poem by Homer, the journey that Racine and Anaia undergo is marked by a desire to return home that’s clouded by tests and external threats from forces far greater than them. Is God Is is about destiny, the paths we find ourselves on, and whether we have any choice in the matter. How do we reckon with events that happen to us instead of the ones we choose to bring into our life? It’s something the twins are haunted by. How different could their lives have been had their father not set that fire? Is the only answer to fight fire with fire?
Courtesy of Amazon/MGM
The film’s title is confusing from the outsider’s perspective, but Harris explains that it serves two purposes. For Racine, it’s a statement about the important role God, her mother in this instance, has in her life. God has given Racine a purpose, a divine order she cannot ignore. It comes from Racine’s deep desire to be cared for and protected in the way she cares for and protects others. For Anaia, it’s more uncertain, a more questioning look at this divine power who wants to control her life. Does the fact that God is Anaia’s mother, who gave her life, give God the power and ability to decide how Anaia is going to live? This inherent friction between the twins produces a series of speed bumps on their journey and makes Is God Is a compelling family-drama revenge flick.
For much of the film, the father, credited as the Monster, is not fully visible. The camera is focused on parts of him: his gleaming smile, his too-proper Sperry shoes, his fingers as they strike a match. When the movie finally lets his face be seen, it’s like looking into the eyes of a real monster, a force of evil whose blood and tendencies run through the twins. Will there be a point in their lives, they wonder, where they will be just like him? Is God Is may be about revenge, but it’s also about fear. Of being afraid of who you are, where you come from, and where it will lead you. To watch Is God Is is to be sent on a vengeful epic, a lyrical saga. When the film opens, a voiceover tells us that these twins have been burning for decades and that the flame has the power to consume them.
Harris leaves the stage behind for a blazing saga on the silver screen. It’s one of those directorial debuts that is so tuned in to its visual language that it feels like Harris has been doing this forever. Drenched in Southern Gothic imagery and righteous anger, Is God Is is a blaze of glory and pain.
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