I often think about (and love) movies that are capable of creating their own language. Snatch, Brick, Clockwork Orange, etc. There’s a storytelling through the language but in the existence of the language as well. It often shortcuts the worldbuilding as we wonder not only how such a linguistic patch is carved but how it navigates the world we have been dropped into. Is God Is is not necessarily interested in creating new language for stylistic and mesmerizing rhetoric. It is more interested in taking concepts we are familiarizing, redefining what they are, and committing to that new language.
While the first shot of Racine and Anaia is while they are little girls and gives a clear glimpse into their personalities and process, we begin the story with them as adults. Working a cleaning job, mostly after hours, away from the eyes of the waking world. Racine, the oldest twin by a few minutes is unflinching, brash, aggressive and clearly the enforcer of the two. The sisters share significant burn scars, but Racine’s scars are limited to one arm and hand. An early comment from Anaia, whose face and upper body are even more burned than her twin, states that Racine could afford to be things that Anaia couldn’t. Loud, direct, sometimes even rude or an instigator. Anaia, who has been called ugly at every turn, even treated as such by the man she’s intimate with, has no such luxury.
The twin dynamic is fascinating and brilliantly shown on screen, as they often finish each others sentences, come to the same conclusions, and all the things you expect of twins. But their own personalities and their own very different circumstances has led them to be very different people. Something that only grows more and more apparent as the film progresses. They have had to redefine who they are, on the fly, from being young girls in foster homes to independent women who still have the capacity to laugh, dance, and love, at least for each other. And this where the importance of how they define themselves comes into play.
The plot moves us along when the twins receive a message from their mother summoning them. She states that she is close to death and wants one thing from them before she passes, for them to find and kill their father, the man responsible for all of their injuries. While the movie names the mother (played by Vivica Fox) as Ruby, the original play written by the director Alesha Harris, names the character as SHE or God. And that is significant because seemingly, the twins had not believed in anything beyond their own survival up to this point. But now, their mother gave them a god to believe. And if you believe in God or a god of any sort, what wouldn’t you do for them? Especially, when that god asks you directly.
Ironically, the meeting with God becomes the way we see the twins faith begin to diverge. One becoming evangelical in the mission and one struggling with not only the faith but the avatar of the messiah as well. Over their journey, many things come into question that muddle those definitions, sometimes entrenching the sisters in their roles, sometimes reversing.
If the trailers or any brief synopsis led you to get some Kill Bill vibes from the story, you aren’t imagining things. While wholly its own story, the mechanism of our protagonists being on a revenge mission that takes them through numerous quirky and irreverent characters to accomplish their mission is present. All of them touched in very different ways by the father, all of them impossibly changed by him in ways that foreshadow the man they hunt. I love when a film utilizes the impossible roster of Black talent for a film like this and seeing Erika Alexander, Mykelti Williamson, and Janelle Monae all play very different, albeit weird, and damaged people was one of my favorite experiences in the film. If there was one thing I would have loved to see the film borrow from say, a Kill Bill, is an extended run time, where these side characters got their own full fleshed out chapters. We got a lot, but I really wanted more of them, specifically.
The awesome side characters (including ones I don’t want to spoil) never distracts from the performances Kara Young and Mallori Johnson turn in as Racine and Anaia. Sympatico, aligned in their movements and speech but such utterly different people on screen. Always, until the film rolls credits, you know that they love each other and not even their new God could deter that, if so was her wish. But as I said, they both excel in their own ways. Young’s Racine is a gorgeous blade. She is aware of not only how she looks, but how she looks in comparison to her sister. She doesn’t glamourize it and goes to great pains to not accentuate it to her sister. But she does not hesitate to weaponize it. Often using her beauty and charm to disarm or destabilize someone in service of her mission. Often, ignoring how close it brings her to the behavior of the man they hunt. Johnson’s Anaia is often the opposite. Much more willing to ask permission instead of the feigned apologies from her sister. She is often meek and but assertive when pushed. While Racine is seen as the protector, the question of Anaia being much more badly burned than her (and of learning of the origin of the burns), it makes a compelling question to ask if those roles were at one point reversed. But Johnson is magnetic in arc, consistently questioning, evaluating, and trying to make the least bad decision at every turn.
While I noted that the movie doesn’t necessarily create its own language, that isn’t to say that it is without style. It is not unreasonable to make the assumption this began as a play, with the dialogue and staging of the enduring characters. But the visual markers as well; text expressing the telepathic bond between the twins, the washed out visuals in flashbacks or still frames shots of the twins while the action, dialogue moves forward. There is a selective feast here for everyone to get full on while keeping the main thing the main thing. These twins, wearing their past and the windy forest that revenge (ok, my last Kill Bill reference). Alesha Harris seems to have not only complete control but mastery of the story she wants to tell and the apparent freedom she operates with is apparent in every scene.
You’ll notice I have not mentioned the biggest name on the marquee yet, Sterling K. Brown, who you no doubt know as the twins father or The Man. It’s hard to talk about him without spoiling too much, but I will say the foreshadowing and glimpses of him do well to build the tower of a complicated but ultimately terrifying man. A singular force that has sculpted the world in a very specific way. So when we catch up to him and finally get to see Mr. Brown’s face, he does not disappoint.
Is God Is is a marvel of a movie. Filled to the brim with cultural reflections, amazing character work, a steady directorial hand, and almost untouchable performances. It’s no small thing for a Black film to take these kind of chances, be this uncompromising, and indulge some of the experimental weirdness that makes ordinary films into triumphs. It does not hold your hand but does not reward you if you flinch or look away.
Cover image via IMDb
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