Is God Is
When Racine (Kara Young, "We Strangers") tells her twin Anaia (Mallori Johnson, TV's 'Kindred') that she got a letter from their mother who is dying and wants them to come to her, Anaia wonders why their mother didn't write to her. 'Because you're too emotional,' is the response. Having passed through multiple foster homes and not seen their mother in years, Anaia wonders if they should go, but when they arrive they are given a directive to 'make their daddy dead' by the woman he set on fire, badly burning the twin children of "Is God Is."
Laura's Review: B
Although she is the quiet one, it is Anaia who we hear opine on her family history. The twin whose face is badly scarred from the fire her father set says Racine 'still got some pretty to her,' the other sister's scars relegated to her hand and arm, the disfigurement we first see when Racine, an office cleaner, reaches out to return a scarf to a departing office worker who is taken aback by the sight. Anaia, shampooing a run, has her back to us, her long gold braids cascading down her back, but when she turns around, we're greeted by two big, expressive eyes set within a face of thick, ropy burn scars. A sepia flashback to the twins as young girls in dresses establishes the violence Racine is capable of as she picks up a wooden bat and strides offscreen, Anaia waiting on a bench, then resting her head on her sister's shoulder upon her return.
Racine is the embodiment of the black women's rage writer/director Aleshea Harris wished to express in her stage play which she has now adapted for her feature screen debut. Her movie is a tale of sisterhood and revenge, a road trip and a reckoning with family history with often shocking levels of violence. Try not to pay attention to the cast before seeing the film, because 'daddy,' who is only seen in part until his third act revelation, is played by an actor cast very much against type and is pure evil, frighteningly convincing in the role.
The twins journey from the Northeast to the South in their 1985 Oldsmobile, arriving at mom Ruby's (Vivica A. Fox) to find her regally lying in bed as if on a throne, women on either side of her braiding her long, dark hair, the style matching her daughters'. The mother the twins refer to as 'God' because 'she made us' recounts the night their father ignored her restraining order, forcing her from the kitchen where she was preparing her girls' supper into the bathtub, then dousing her in gasoline and lighting a match. Racine and Anaia rushed in screaming, trying to pull their mother out of the conflagration as their father stood in the front doorway smoking a cigarette, then disappearing into the night and a new life.
While Anaia says she's not a killer, Racine is fired up for revenge, their first clue provided by their mother - the woman their dad took up with after destroying his first family.
They'll find Divine (Erika Alexander) preaching, their father's clothes in a dresser in her bedroom still awaiting his return some nineteen years after he left her pregnant with Ezekiel (Josiah Cross, "A Thousand and One"). Confounded by her loyalty to the man, they'll swipe her address book, next heading to their dad's lawyer Chuck Hall (Mykelti Williamson) and finding a man whose tongue had been ripped out who writes on a slate they should steer clear. They will be hunted down by a man on a motorcycle and after Racine dispatches him with a rock in a sock, will finally arrive at their destination in the desert, ripe for a Western style showdown.
This is the first time Harris leaves her twins' point of view, giving us insight into their father's new family. His current wife, Angie (Janelle Monáe), packs bags in her well appointed home, then strides out, elegantly dressed, to her Mercedes with an excuse and instructions for dinner to her set of twins, the aggressive Scotch (Xavier Mills) and more sensitive Riley (Justen Ross). A short distance from her house, her car will be blocked by Racine and Anaia sitting in the road and from this point on, things will get ugly, Harris leading us astray at one point with her two sets of twins' parallel personalities. But she also has surprises up her sleeve, one a fiery tragedy, the other a new mother. "Is God Is" traverses these United States with two black women determined to leave their mark and have their say.
(Note that I found the level of violence against women in this movie disturbing, especially in pitting one abused woman against another and close-ups of a man's fist pummeling a woman's face in addition to the depiction of the catalyzing event.)
Amazon/MGM releases "Is God Is" in theaters on 5/15/26.
