Surprisingly, there are only a handful of passages in the Bible that are directly about twins. That in itself is somewhat strange. Conceiving, carrying and giving birth to one child is such a wonder of biology that doing the same for another infant simultaneously seems like exactly the type of miracle that would be splashed throughout the good book.
Instead, the Bible mentions twins only a few times, most prominently in the Book of Genesis, where brothers Jacob and Esau battle for power and inheritance after the younger twin, Jacob, tricks Esau into handing over his birthright. Jacob’s deception causes a lifelong rift between the two brothers, but, as with all these ancient stories, fate is preordained by God. “Two nations are in your womb,” God tells Jacob and Esau’s mother, Rebekah, “and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”
In its mercilessness, “Is God Is” taps the feeling of discontent lingering inside the weary viewer, like a sleeper cell awakening to remember that the origin of every present, contemporary evil has roots centuries in the past.
Conversely, the Bible contains countless references to revenge. One could read the entire scripture — both the Old and New Testaments — as an allegory for humanity’s penchant for payback, and God’s many warnings against it. The stories frame the all-consuming desire for retaliation as an integral aspect of our mortal lives; no one gets out without hankering for a bit of vengeance. The Book of Exodus famously renders this principle as “an eye for an eye,” making revenge anatomical, as if it were as natural as we are.
Aleshea Harris’ debut feature, “Is God Is,” sees revenge as a similarly organic, fundamental part of our being. Based on her hit 2018 stage play of the same name, Harris’ film is a road movie meeting a spaghetti western, with a dash of “Set It Off” gone Tarantino. This amalgamation of excessive style is a favorite at the multiplex these days, typically to lackluster effect. But a narrative throughline hellbent on retribution neatly threads Harris’ fiery aesthetic choices together, giving “Is God Is” far more substance — and much more thematic intrigue — than its contemporaries.
Twin sisters Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) have been marked with visible burn scars across their bodies, the result of a violent attack on them and their mother (Vivica A. Fox) by their estranged father (Sterling K. Brown) in their youth. When their mother — whom the twins refer to as “God,” because she made them — unexpectedly summons the twins to her home, she tasks her daughters with an epic quest for vengeance: Kill their father, and everyone around him. The ensuing violence is both joyous and cruel, predictable in a way that doesn’t exactly feel conventional, but rather biblically preordained. In its mercilessness, “Is God Is” taps the feeling of discontent lingering inside the weary viewer, like a sleeper cell awakening to remember that the origin of every present, contemporary evil has roots centuries in the past.
That Anaia and Racine’s journey is born in flames is no accident. Fire and the byproducts of its blaze appear as frequently in religious texts as they do in more colloquial language. Back in Genesis, God tells Adam, “For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” That verse has transformed into the funereal recitation “ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and can be traced all the way to the present day, when Mark Wahlberg and other MAGA stars rub ashes on their forehead to offer 20% off the Hallow app’s subscription price.
While “Is God Is” makes no overt references to modern politics or social mores, Harris’ writing is in constant conversation with our uniquely infernal times. In her story, we’re all at the mercy of each other’s whims. Prosperity is not earned; it’s taken through violent means. Casual malevolence lurks around every corner. Hellfire can creep under your door while you sleep, so imperceptible that you won’t notice the soot on your walls and smoke in your lungs until you wake up to greet the new day and witness the surrounding damage. As two Black women burned by the fire and forced to live in its flames, Racine and Anaia are understandably fatigued.
What sets their story apart from other revenge-laden tales of late is Harris’ remarkable knack for unvarnished realism. Films like “They Will Kill You” and those in the “Ready or Not” franchise incorporate visual elements of the divine and satanic to distract from their mediocre screenplays and recycled ideas. But “Is God Is” refuses to gussy up its allegories with too many special effects or gratuitous gore. It’s straightforward and uncomplicated, but replete with stylistic choices that add a memorable flair to the filmmaking, without losing its practical edge. Harris’ film wields religious subtext in the same ways lawmakers and political figureheads do. Her screenplay is an interpretation of the text, a strong-armed reminder that anyone can use scripture to make a convincing case for their actions, no matter how violent or marginalizing they may be.
The same goes for the twins, who see their revenge as a spiritual rite. Early in the film, Racine, whose burn scars only cover her left arm, reminds Anaia, whose scars are much more severe and difficult to hide, of the cards they were dealt. “Ain’t you mad, twin?” Racine asks. Young delivers the line more like a statement than a question. At the precipice of an odyssey that will challenge the half-lives they’ve lived so far, the sisters’ anger is palpable. Why shouldn’t they right this wrong? If a monster like their father can disfigure God, doesn’t his existence pose a threat to a world already under siege? His happiness is an affront to their own chronic displeasure. It’s as if God herself handed them a free pass to strike down the demon who’s plagued their dreams all their lives.
This is a film about good versus evil, gods versus monsters — the fables we’ve been telling since the beginning of time, and why they will be with us until the end.
Once the sisters hit the road, Harris deftly balances comedy with cultural observations and the occasional burst of vicious brutality, courtesy of a boulder stuffed inside a tube sock. Her theatrically minded screenplay is one of the best examples I’ve seen of modifying a stage play for the big screen. “Is God Is” is rarely hindered by the obstacles so many stage adaptations run into. The film is wide and expansive, but moves smoothly between narrative guardrails. It doesn’t lose its way, yet doesn’t feel entirely confined to one place — a critical component that allows “Is God Is” to play like a modern biblical fable.
Along the way, Anaia and Racine contend with evergreen notions of morality and sinfulness. The sisters wonder if their violence, like fire, is purifying. They grapple with the knotted concept of complicity, trying to ascertain just how evil the characters they meet — those who were also left in their father’s wicked wake — really are, and whether they’re deserving of the rock in the sock. As it turns out, these questions don’t have simple answers. The people Racine and Anaia come across are as put-upon and exhausted as they are. Even those with lives, careers and families are fundamentally lost, snared between their pursuit of personal justice and instinctual self-preservation. That’s exactly how the world’s villains want us to be: angry and afraid, trying to wriggle free from the spider’s web while they laugh and plot our demise.
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Making vengeance look human again is Harris’ great strength. For as long as we’ve been going to the movies, there’s been no shortage of revenge films. But somewhere along the way, these movies became bigger, more outrageous. Retribution can be simple and straightforward, but of late, protagonists of these kinds of movies have to cut through armies of people with a katana or battle criminal syndicates for their narratives to be deemed commercially viable.
While “Is God Is” borrows from some of those films, it’s not trying to show off. Harris’ debut is reliably story-driven. And though it boasts excellent character work, one gets the sense that Harris wrote this as a means to an end. This is a Bible story updated for today, when the Bible might as well contain the nuclear launch codes. “Is God Is” is deceptively simple. It’s about good versus evil, gods versus monsters — the fables we’ve been telling since the beginning of time, and why they will be with us until the end. How appropriate that its bittersweet final act is so steeped in scripture, echoing God’s words to Rebekah about Jacob and Esau’s destiny. Maybe all the answers have already been written, and we’re just characters in a story, trying to outwit fate. If that’s true, “Is God Is” presents a compelling reason to keep trying to rewrite the ending. If there’s one thing centuries of God-fearing living have taught us, it’s that the Bible is open to interpretation.
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