Content warning: This article contains references to intimate partner violence.
In 2017, I participated in a staged reading of playwright Aleshea Harris’ “Is God Is” at the Huntington Theater Company. Almost a decade later, Harris has adapted her play into a movie of the same name. “Is God Is” (2026) is the kind of explosive feature film debut that showcases the filmmaker’s virtuosity.
The film centers on twin sisters, Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson), who were scarred during a childhood fire and go on an epic quest to kill their father (Sterling K. Brown ’98), the man responsible for setting the fire while trying to murder their mother. As the sisters embark on their revenge odyssey, they wrestle with the legacy of violence in their bloodline.
Considering the recent uptick in femicide, it may be tempting to refer to “Is God Is” as prescient. But Black women in the U.S. have long been disproportionately impacted by intimate partner homicide, making the film an urgent wake-up call. “Is God Is” is a form of narrative repair that gives Black women space to express rightful rage and despair, and agency to refract the harm directed at them back into the world.
The film is visually stunning, and yet it is the written word that brings us into Racine and Anaia’s cloistered existence and propels them out of it. The opening voiceover declares the twins have been burning as the girls ice each other’s scarred skin. Racine’s face was spared in the fire, whereas Anaia’s visage was badly burned. Sepia-toned flashbacks to their childhood post-fire reveal the bullying Anaia endured and Racine’s role as her protector.
As young adults, the yin-yang twins know each other so well that they can communicate telepathically. Subtitles bring the audience in without disrupting the flow of their nonverbal dialogue. A letter arrives from their mother (Vivica A. Fox), who they believed died in the fire. Racine is immediately convinced they should meet their mother (aka God, seeing as how she made them), but Anaia is skeptical. Why did she let them languish in foster homes? Why reach out to them now? These questions serve as commentary on how intimate partner violence corrupts family dynamics: The trauma and abuse inflicted on the girls’ mother led them to experience neglect.
The girls sojourn to their mother’s home, and from her bed of affliction, she recalls that tragic night and expresses her dying wish: “Make your daddy dead,” and destroy everything around him. Kill his spirit and his body. This is quite the chore list after years without contact.
Although Harris’s film references are on display — Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” (2003), Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” (1991) and the Coen Brothers’ “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” (2000) all receive nods — “Is God Is” showcases the specialness of Black vernacular and storytelling.
During conflicts, the twins speak in third person — a syntactic feature of special emphasis in Black English and an indication they are tapping into larger issues at stake than the current conversation. Racine and Anaia’s vengeance tour is marked by Sankofa moments — rooting themselves in the past and as they look toward the future.
Each character gives them insight into their father and warns them of the danger of proceeding with their plan. There are several scenes of what Toni Morrison referred to as rememory, or recollecting fragmented pieces of one’s past. Young and Johnson’s chemistry as cinematic sisters shine throughout the film as they oscillate from silly to serious, but there is alchemy in these collective memory scenes where they lighten each other’s emotional weight of the traumatic memories they’ve had to carry all their lives.
Indeed, the entire film is extremely well-cast. Considering Fox’s role as Vernita Green in “Kill Bill,” another mother whose life is marred by violence, playing the twins’ mother gestures to this legacy. Fox is onscreen only briefly, but she does stunning work as the character is in three places at once — first in the present, recounting the night of the fire, then in the past, at the scene of the crime, then even further in the past, surviving her husband’s abuse.
Brown does not speak during many of his scenes, yet he is brilliant throughout. He is alternatively credited as “Man” and “The Monster” — a detail that underscores the difficulty of making sense of a person whose violence alters the trajectory of the sisters’ lives. Most successful abusers are charming — a fact reinforced by the trail of broken hearts and homes the father has left since he got away with attempted murder. There is an intertextuality Brown brings from previous good guy roles he has played. He speaks with a rehearsed cadence that is calm and eerie. Perhaps he has grown since his past, but don’t the people he has harmed deserve redress?
“Is God Is” is a violent film, and yet the pleasure center in my brain lit up the entire time. It was the same feeling I had during that 2017 reading. I was directed to skip a set of stage directions, but Harris politely insisted that she wanted to hear me say them aloud. Hindsight is 20/20, but it is no wonder someone with such a strong point of view was able to create such a captivating work of art.