‘Is God Is’: Aleshea Harris’ Scorching Film Debut Declares War on Misogyny With Brilliant Grindhouse Grit

Alci Rengifo

There will be few villains as monstrously terrifying at the movies this year as the antagonist of Aleshea Harris’ “Is God Is.” As played by Sterling K. Brown, the mysterious father being hunted down by his daughters in playwright Aleshea Harris’ directorial debut is a brilliant, chillingly human creation. It is one of the components that makes Harris’ film a unique genre-bender. Some of the best writers can take popular forms and make them new. On the surface this plot has all the makings of a bloody grindhouse entertainment, fueled by cruel revenge. Harris first conjured this material as a play which won the American Playwriting Foundation’s Relentless Award in 2016. As cinema, it is visually assured but primarily fueled by crackling writing about Black America, women, poisoned family trees and the sins of damned fathers.

First, we meet twin sisters Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson), who both have prominent burn scars, Racine mostly on her hands and Anaia on her face. These were the result of a childhood incident still hazy in their memories. Racine is the assertive sister while Anaia is quieter, and more insecure about her appearance. They are called to the Deep South to the bedside of their dying mother, Ruby (Vivica A. Fox), whose entire body is covered in burn scars. She recounts how when the twins were little girls, their father (Brown), a violent man Ruby tried to keep away, tried to force his way back into their home. When Ruby rejected his advances, he set her on fire, a fire which would then burn his daughters as well. Ruby has a specific request: She demands her daughters find her former husband and destroy him and all he now has, including his new family. As if commanded by God, the twins hit the road to track down the father they barely knew to impose a reckoning.

Though Harris did not direct the Off Broadway production of her play, she naturally translates it to cinema with the confidence of a born filmmaker. The plotting and language are a hybrid borrowing from various cultural corners the artist has clearly grown up absorbing, from Blaxploitation cinema to the literature of writers like James McBride. Greek tragedy is another unmistakable influence. There is a link here to the way Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” refreshed old genres with a richer subtext. Harris and cinematographer Alexander Dynan shoot the southern terrain Racine and Anaia drive through with an arid, grainy ambiance that would be at home in something like Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof,” though more polished. Joseph Shirley’s driving score blends nicely with a few needle drops that never overtake the material. Everything is part of the story. 

“Is God Is” proves that pop cinema can still be literary. Harris’ dialogue is eloquent without becoming pretentious, finding that unique poetic cadence you find at times in good Westerns. It helps that everyone feels so vivid. Racine and Anaia are believable as differing personalities who nonetheless love each other without limits. They are working class characters who are dealt life’s unfair hand, aware the world makes it even harder when people turn away from their scars. Office jobs become a chore because co-workers clearly notice. Anaia has an older lover who prefers taking her from behind so as to not look at her face. The situation also builds a strong solidarity between the twins. Young and Johnson deliver performances on par with the best of early Spike Lee. They are intelligent and ferocious, tender in a way people hurt by the world tend to be with the added feature of demanding someone’s trust be earned. 

As a Black American woman, Harris’ writing also demolishes the male gaze. This is bold Black American female cinema and a refined feminist takedown of misogyny, with other added bits of social sting. One of the first stops in their journey is to a church led by Divine the Healer (Erika Alexander), one of the women the twins’ father began seeing after his near-deadly assault. These scenes carry great, sobering satire. Divine leads a congregation in a makeshift chapel inside a house, with the air of a cult. She struggles to justify why she still feels devoted to an absent monster, even after knowing what he had done to Ruby. Her son Ezekiel (Josiah Cross) is a demented acolyte who has never met his father, yet feels a manly duty to defend him from the twins once it’s obvious they want to kill him. The men in the world of “Is God Is” are rarely capable of good because they have been wired to worship an idea of masculinity that is socially toxic. Angie (Janelle Monáe), the father’s new wife, cracks after spending all her time cleaning their lavish home out in the middle of nowhere, caring for two man child sons, Riley (Justen Ross) and Scotch (Xavier Mills). 

Harris is a keen writer, so the twins are not necessarily saints. There is a price to be paid when one embarks on a determined, fanatical road. Anaia is terrified at how easily Racine becomes a killer. Is it because she has the DNA of a violent man? Or does justice sometimes demand the sword? That question comes to head in the blistering third act, when the sisters come face to face with their father, a man so unnerving his lawyer (Mykelti Williamson) is terrified of him ever returning. Brown nearly overpowers the film when he arrives to face his offspring. In the way he dresses, moves and talks, Brown brilliantly evokes the controlled, vain narcissist with a volcano inside. Harris keeps the character nameless. Some people become such nightmares that they exist as ghosts beyond anything human to their victims. The writing turns into an intense duel between the daughter asking why a man would burn his family and the man self-trained to maneuver around any accusation. There are reminders of real cases such as Charles Rothenberg, who infamously set his son on fire amid a custody fight, as captured in the chilling TV movie “David.”

A lesser artist would make revenge the sole point. Harris ends the film with the unavoidable, violent climax yet raises further moral questions that challenge the audience. “Is God Is” is the kind of pop art sorely lacking these days, willing to be provocative even as it entertains. It will make some audience members uncomfortable, but how else to treat these themes? Terms like toxic masculinity or generational trauma have become part of our modern, progressive language. Harris takes their implications seriously. She has made a film about what destruction misogyny can leave behind with powerful pop symbolism. This is a dynamic, entertaining film, with a story designed to linger in the same way deep scars truly never go away.

“Is God Is” releases May 15 in theaters nationwide.