Review of Is God Is, directed by Aleshea Harris

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

Is God Is is actually a movie I wanted to see originally through my AMC (a domestic theatre chain here in the United States) subscription, but it honestly wasn’t at my local theater for long. While I missed out on it at the theater, I knew I still wanted to watch it, especially once I saw Kara Young on stage for the second time in Proof.

So I rented the movie on a weekend and watched it all the way through. And my oh my—you could tell this one was based off of a stage play from some of the dialogue.

Let’s get into the review!

Two disfigured twins go an adventure to kill their father, who set the fire that destroyed their—and their mother’s—lives.

Our main characters in this movie are Anaia and Racine, and they’re twin sisters scraping by in life. They were disfigured in a fire their father set when they were little girls, but they’re scarred in different ways. Anaia’s face and chest are left with scars, while only Racine’s arm is covered in scars. But when Racine receives a letter from their mother, who they had assumed died in the fire, they drive all the way to the other side of the country to meet them.

Her mother, who’s known as God in the film, is dying of her injuries from the fire. She tells them that she left them in foster care for a reason, and that their father had broken into the house and set the fire after knocking her unconscious. She had a restraining order against him at the time, but that didn’t matter when he set God on fire in front of the girls.

She asks the twins to go and kill their father, but when they say know, she tells her attendants to pull up the blanket covering her injuries. Racine decides on the spot to agree to the plan after seeing the injuries, and their first stop is to meet Divine. She’s a woman who runs a church of sorts out of a home, and their father had a relationship with her after the trial for what he had done.

Turns out Divine’s son Ezekiel was the product of a tryst with their father, and Divine is obsessed with the thought of their father returning to her. Racine goes off on her about how their father was someone not really worth loving, and Divine kicks them out because she’s deluded herself into believing he’s coming back to her. Racine steals an address book on the way out, which they use to track down his lawyer Chuck.

Chuck communicates with them using a white board, but on it he’s telling them to give it up. Racine refuses to do that, but Chuck then shows them how their father ripped out his tongue. It’s a consequence of trying to tell others about what he was capable of. He then gives them where he’s living now with his newest wife and twin sons.

But it’s after this, on the road, a masked motorcyclist comes after them with a hammer. He manages to destroy their engine before chasing them onto a jobsite, were thy manage to take him down. Turns out it’s Ezekiel and he’s on his own quest to save his father, but the twins escape and decide to take the bus to his house.

There, his current wife Angie flees to start her new life, but meets the twins on the way out. She tells them about she was abused, but when they don’t let her go, she becomes an absolutely nasty person and spits in Racine’s face. Racine is triggered by that and beats her to death, and Anaia tells her not to kill anyone else out of horror.

Back at the house, his sons, Riley and Scotch, open the door and assume their father sent strippers for their birthday. The girls pretend to be just that, but when they’re changing, Racine looks at Anaia and realizes she’s pregnant. She admits it’s from an older man she met online.

They start performing for their half-brothers, but then Scotch makes fun of Anaia’s scars. Racine seduces him and beats him to death while Anaia bonds with Riley. Scotch comes out of the room and dies on the floor, bleeding to death, and Anaia grabs Riley and tells him to flee. He starts choking her, then Racine intervenes.

A fight happens and Racine is left bloody on the ground. Riley is killed by Anaia with a pair of hedge clippers, but their father comes home. Anaia drags her sister inside, but their father comes and finds them. He claims then that their mother is the reason for their injuries, as she grabbed them before she was set on fire.

He also says he would never harm his kids, and Anaia believes him and puts the weapon down. He attacks her then, but Racine wakes up and attacks him too. They push him into his bathroom tub and set him on fire, but when they leave, he grabs Racine and pulls her into the fire. She dies that way.

Anaia flees and mourns her sister in the ruins of the building. She says she’s going to tell her baby all about Racine, and that’s how the movie ends.

Overall Thoughts

As I mentioned before, I think you can tell that this movie was originally a stage play. The dialogue is sharp and snappy, with the actors doing a fantastic job with their roles. I think Kara Young is a revolutionary actor in everything I’ve seen her in (I also saw her in the Broadway show Proof when it was in previews), and she nails her job as the more vicious twin.

Lots to break down in this movie overall though, especially when it comes to how these characters engage with each other. Racine and Anaia’s relationship alone is something that deserves an entire analysis, especially when it comes to the symbolism of their mother being called God.

If you like Southern Gothic movies, this is one for you. I say watch this one if want a good revenge movie on a Friday night—I genuinely enjoyed it a lot, but I could also see how it might not be someone’s cup of tea.

Give it a chance though if you want to!

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