‘Is God Is’ Review: Vivica A. Fox & Sterling K. Brown in Revenge Drama

Fraternal twins Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) have always had only each other. After a childhood bouncing from one abusive foster home to the next, the two have settled into a life together where sisterhood always comes first. Both sisters have burns on their bodies, but Anaia’s facial scars make her stand out. And if someone bothers Anaia, Racine is there to fight for her.

We see this at the very beginning of Aleshea Harris’ debut feature, Is God Is. In a black and white flashback, the young twins sit peacefully on a bench together, until some kids walk by calling Anaia ugly. Racine quickly rises, beats the bullies, and then returns to sit next to her sister. In the present day, the twins get fired when Racine defends her sister at work. They are both newly unemployed when Racine tells Anaia that she’s been corresponding with their estranged mother (Vivica A. Fox). Soon enough, the twins pack their things and get on the road, driving their very cinematic classic car down the backroads of the American South.

Once they arrive, their mother gives them a simple mission: kill their father. In flashback, we learn that they were once a family until their mother got a restraining order against their father (Sterling K. Brown). One night, he violates the restraining order and comes into the house, hoping to embrace his wife. But when she doesn’t reciprocate, he pushes her into the bathtub, pours lighter fluid on her and sets her body ablaze. He also brings his twin daughters into the bathroom to see their mother burn — their scars are the result of their desperate attempts to save their mother.

Meanwhile, their father walks out of their life entirely. And though their mother survives the burns, she couldn’t take care of them. Now that her daughters are grown and she is near death, she can’t rest easy until the man who tried to kill her is dead. Unfortunately, the three women have no idea where to find the wayward patriarch. 

Harris’ screenplay follows a classic “hero’s journey” template, with the twins setting off on the open road, meeting a variety of eccentric characters in the search for their enigmatic father. The first stop is a church run by the charismatic Divine (Erika Alexander), who bills herself as a healer. The twins also meet their half-brother Ezekiel (Josiah Cross), who becomes a problem later. Thankfully, Divine has kept all their father’s things, and they steal his address book, leading them to his former lawyer, Chuck (Mykelti Williamson).

Eventually, the sisters make it to their father’s home, meet his new wife (Janelle Monae), their twin brothers (Xavier Mills, Justen Ross) and, eventually, the man himself. Racine and Anaia’s journey mirrors that of The Bride’s in Quentin Tarantino’s two-part epic Kill Bill, as they follow a bloody trail of revenge before the final showdown. Fox’s presence in the movie is another reminder; in Tarantino’s film, Fox is slain by The Bride (Uma Thurman) and she tells her daughter that she may seek her out for revenge when she’s older. Racine and Anaia, acting as spiritual successors, pursue revenge with their own Bill, this one Black and even more mysterious. 

Is God Is is not just the story of one Black family; it stands as an almost cosmic example of the dysfunction inherent in so many Black American families. Black men, weighed down by white exploitation in the world, come home to families that bear the brunt of their outside frustrations. Late in the film, when Anaia asks her father why he tried to kill her mother, his response is simple: She wouldn’t let me hold her. Never mind that she had a restraining order against him and legally he should not have been there; even after having all those years to think about his actions, he continues to blame his ex-wife. There is this prevalent idea in the Black community that a woman’s role is to calmly support the Black men in her life, setting aside her own feelings and safety. Brown’s patriarch is the embodiment of that unbalanced relationship, causing chaos and expecting more love and forgiveness in return. 

The “God” in the title is Fox, the name bestowed upon her for giving life to our heroines. Racine and Anaia are more than just sisters in this narrative — they represent all the justifiably angry Black girls who deserved more than the world gave them. Harris adapted Is God Is from her play of the same name, and the theatrical spirit lives on in the film through the rhythm and repetition of the dialogue. The central performances are strong, with Brown perfectly embodying a sinister, otherworldly image of masculinity run amok.

It’s a shame, then, that the film around these impressive actors is visually flat. The South we see in Is God Is is a desolate, underpopulated landscape — too neat and quiet for a story that should feel larger. All the words sound right and everyone is in place, but Is God Is feels like a film just short of greatness.