Is God Is Is A Greek Tragedy For Forgotten Black Girls
Aleasha Harris’ debut is a simmering slow burn and a satisfying battle cry.
In some ways, it’s easy to deduce that Aleasha Harris has adapted one of her plays for her directorial debut. If a film could be a vine and the dialogue the fruit, Is God Is would hang heavy with delicious diction and succinct, unforgettable themes. In other ways, it’s harder to tell: Is God Is hardly feels like the work of a first-time director, if only because Harris approaches every beat with an astonishing confidence and coolness. One could see Tarantino’s Kill Bill in her stylistic flourishes, the righteous, long-festering fury in her heroines. The bones of Greek tragedy are resurrected here, too — but the fact that they’re here to serve an ensemble of justifiably angry Black women turns a straightforward revenge story into the most surprising thriller of the year.
If anything is obvious, it’s that we’ve never seen anything like Is God Is before. That’s clear from the moment we meet Harris’ protagonists, the spitfire Racine (Kara Young) and her shy twin sister Anaia (Mallori Johnson). Each has grown up disfigured by a fire set by their abusive father (an unrecognizable Sterling K. Brown), believing that same fire claimed the life of their mother (Vivica A. Fox), whom they call God. “She made us, didn’t she?” Racine asks. As the fire spared her face, the world has categorized her “The Pretty One” of the pair, a privilege she weaponizes with a bite as bad as her bark.
Racine is also the Mean One, the Strong One, protecting Anaia — whose reserve stems from her big heart as much as it does the scars marring her face — from anything that might harm her. That includes a letter from their mother, the first contact they’ve had with her in 20-odd years. God somehow survived their father’s unspeakable expression of violence, but has lived in constant pain ever since, her charred body its own perpetual inferno. She’s about to succumb to her injuries, but before she does, she summons her daughters to bequeath her dying wish: “Make your daddy dead. Real dead.”
Their quest carries all the epic dread and destiny of an Arthurian legend; though Anaia is remiss to harm anyone, even the man who maimed her family, Racine takes up the challenge with enough gusto for the both of them. Is God Is quickly adopts the beats of a road trip movie, and Harris finds some much-needed opportunities for levity in the twins’ journey. The girls twerk in front of state signs from Tennessee to Virginia, blasting raucous music out of their vintage car. It’s as close a dose of girlhood as they’re ever going to get, but it’s infectious all the same. You almost forget they’re also plotting the best way to take a life — that is, until Harris superimposes text from the play above their heads in a clever nod to “twin telepathy,” one of many brilliant ways this story moves from stage to screen. A stunning black-and-white sequence in which God recounts the fire is another, creating a cinematic cornerstone that sticks in the mind like an eye-burning afterimage.
Is God Is splices Greek tragedy with Southern Gothic thrills.
Tracking their father is no simple task for Racine and Anaia, but what starts as a wild goose chase for them is entertaining for us. As the twins chase every lead they have, Is God Is takes every opportunity to build up the horrifying myth surrounding their target. Harris is careful to shoot Brown like snatches of a hazy memory, keeping her camera at his back, or zoomed in on singular facial features (like his toothy grin) instead of his person as a whole. It forces a new perspective of an actor, most likely conjured from memory. Instead, the experiences recounted by his other ex-wives — like a brilliant Erika Alexander, who’s turned her home into a shrine unto the man his daughters call The Monster — paint a new portrait.
Brown’s unseen bogeyman has left a trail of children and violence everywhere he goes. Racine and Anaia cross paths with a younger half-brother (Josaiah Cross), happily indoctrinated into the church of The Monster, alongside the lawyer (Mykelti Williamson) who fought his arson and attempted murder charges and lost his tongue — “for fear that it would wag” — shortly after. Every revelation slots perfectly into Harris’ heightened world, but any dose of magical realism does little to undercut the shocking violence her heroines encounter. That’s by design: it makes perfect sense when Racine embraces the violent urges she typically, if half-heartedly, suppressed.
Despite its shocks of violence, Harris’ debut throbs with cathartic, righteous fury.
Despite Anaia’s horror, it’s strangely cathartic to see a Black woman fight back against the forces that seek to annihilate her. Racine is speaking for so many when she frostily reveals that she wants to step on someone else, for a chance, rather than be trodden on. Is God Is takes a belligerent swing at all the big, small, and insidious ways Black women are disparaged and disposed of. It functions both as a metaphor and — in an era when cases of femicide are rising faster than they should be — a sobering dose of realism. But Harris also isn’t satisfied with one portrayal of Black femininity: Is God Is also asks whether a victim can go too far in their quest for retribution. Racine is willing to mow down anyone who stands between her sister and her target, even technical innocents, like the Monster’s third wife (a squirelly Janelle Monáe). How much of the violence she perpetuates is justified and earned; how can the cycle be broken if “an eye for an eye” is the Golden Rule?
Harris’ text is deceptively straightforward, but the more it wades into the weeds, the thornier this tale gets. Any challenge it brings up is a welcome one, though, if only because Young — delivering a masterclass in uncaged fury — and Johnson make it so impossible to look away. Their dialled-in performances carry this tale from strength to strength, and their commitment is a saving grace for the parts of the script (few as they are) that leave something to be desired. If Is God Is had one flaw, it’d be in its hurry to reach its resolution. Not unlike Racine, its tunnel vision could be its undoing — but an empathetic counter-balance in Anaia assures that this battle cry won’t fade any time soon.
