‘Is God Is’ Review: First You Define a Religion, Then You Worship It

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.

Image via NPR

The twin dynamic is fascinating and brilliantly shown on screen, as they often finish …