Lest anyone suppose that the title Is God Is denotes a pious devotional picture, be advised: not so much. Written and directed by the debuting Aleshea Harris, based on her Obie-award winning 2018 play, this is a twisted, very violent revenge tale, even by Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez standards. It’s also funny and compelling.
Our heroines are twins Anaia (Mallori Johnson) and Racine (Kara Young), not identical but nonetheless with a quasi-telepathic connection; their conversations are sometimes just exchanged glances, subtitled for our benefit. Anaia’s face is covered with disfiguring burn tissue from an atrocity that the sisters suffered as children; Racine’s scars are less visible, and she serves as her sister’s fierce defender.
The two are summoned from their menial jobs to the Deep South and the bedside of their long-absent mother, known as Ruby the God (Vivica A. Fox), who is also covered with burn tissue. The loving but imperious Ruby has a last request for her daughters: wreak hellish vengeance on their father (Sterling K. Brown), the person responsible for their fates.
They accept the mission, Racine gleefully; Anaia with moral ambivalence. What follows is an episodic road movie, as the sisters trace the whereabouts of their quarry through the various creepy oddball characters in his past, played by the likes of Mykelti Williamson, Janelle Monáe and Erika Alexander, among others.
The big final clash is maybe a little more drawn out and laborious than it needs to be to give vengeful satisfaction. But Harris has a gift for eccentric characterization and dialogue. And despite the gothic and grotesque plot flourishes, the movie’s power is rooted in the touching bond of sisterly love and loyalty generated by Johnson and Young. There were never such devoted sisters.
