Is God Is Shows Black Female Rage As Revolution
Told with a surrealist, blood-soaked swagger, Is God Is follows twin sisters Racine and Anaia (played by an electric Kara Young and magnetic Mallori Johnson) as they embark on a revenge mission after reconnecting with the mother (Vivica A. Fox reminding us why she’s a legend) they believed was dead. Their father (played chillingly by Sterling K. Brown, unlike we’ve ever seen him) tried to burn all three of them alive when the twins were little. Racine and Anaia made it out with wounds to show for it (Anaia moreso) and lived the rest of their lives believing the mother succumbed to her injuries in the fire. The resurrection, and the fact that she made them, leads Racine and Anaia to refer to their mom as “God.” God is a Black woman, as she should be. And when she asks them on her death bed to murder their father, they set out to do just that. The setup does feel Biblical, and the film isn’t subtle about its critiques of the church and religion, but then it turns into a darkly funny Western road trip adventure — think vengeance by way of a dreamscape where trauma, destiny, and absurdity collide. But beneath all the stylized violence and hypnotic visuals is something surprisingly tender: a meditation on what liberation looks like when Black women stop suppressing what hurts.
