I couldn't stop thinking about Is God Is after I watched it. Yet, I also didn't rate the film very highly. This paradox confused me and led me to watch the film a second time in less than a week. After that, the answer hit me like being sent an Instagram notification about your ex's engagement announcement on a pedestrian Tuesday morning: I wasn't ready for it.
The reason that Is God Is had managed to get under my skin and remain in my subconscious for as long as it did while stopping short of being a great film was simple. As an allegory about generational trauma, the film was incredibly effective but, and this is crucial, as a revenge thriller, Is God Is felt lacking.
The first film from writer-director Aleshea Harris, who adapted Is God Is from a play of the same name she also wrote, is a haunting study of how trauma reverberates through time and the different ways people respond to it.
Anaia and Racine are twin sisters with nobody to look out for them except each other. They both have visible scars on their skin that render them social outcasts but we don't know where these scars come from until, almost as an echo from some distant, forgotten past, their mother Ruby re-enters their life.
Ruby sends a letter beckoning the twins to her deathbed. They learn that the scars they carry and those that are slowly claiming their mother's life were inflicted upon them by a man.
That man was their father. Years ago he intentionally set Ruby on fire and made his children collateral damage as they tried to save their mother from the flames.
All these years later, Ruby has not forgotten this transgression because how could she? And now, her first and final wish to her daughters is simple: “Make your Daddy dead. Real dead.”
And with that, the sisters embark on a cross-country journey, tracking down the various people whose lives have intersected with their father’s. Along the way they encounter former lovers, abandoned children and victims of his violence, all while inching closer to a final confrontation with the man responsible for their suffering.
But the film is far more interested in symbolism, mythology and allegory than it is in the mechanics of revenge. The title alone points us in this direction. The twins refer to their mother as “God”, reasoning that she made them so “that kinda makes her like God”, and this immediately elevates the story into the realm of fable. The film is populated by recurring images of fire, scars, inheritance and rebirth. Characters often feel less like fully realised individuals and more like embodiments of ideas. To the film’s credit, much of this works. The relationship between the sisters is easily its greatest strength. Racine and Anaia share a bond that feels lived in and authentic. Their telepathic communication, visualised through words appearing on screen, could have come across as a gimmick but instead becomes one of the film’s most charming and distinctive devices.
The performances at the centre of the story help considerably. We believe that these women love each other deeply even when they find themselves at odds. Racine increasingly embraces violence while Anaia searches for another path forward, creating a dynamic that gives the film much of its emotional and philosophical tension.
Visually, Is God Is is striking. Harris displays a strong eye for composition and atmosphere while the soundtrack is consistently well chosen. The decision to populate the film with an entirely black cast also gives it a distinctive identity in a genre that often defaults to familiar archetypes and conventions.
The problem is that for all its thematic richness, the film never fully succeeds as a revenge story. The action sequences are surprisingly underwhelming. Encounters that should feel pivotal often arrive and depart with little dramatic impact. Characters appear, reveal information and are dispatched before they have the opportunity to leave much of an impression. The result is a story that feels oddly meandering despite its relatively straightforward premise.
The film seems more interested in being interpreted than experienced. Much of the characterisation arrives through narration rather than inter-action, encouraging the audience to engage with the film on a symbolic level.
There is certainly plenty to unpack. Viewed through one lens, the twins become two responses to trauma. Racine embodies rage, vengeance and an inability to move beyond the past. Anaia represents the possibility of healing and renewal. The father functions as the source of a cycle of violence that has spread through multiple families.
There is even an intriguing mirror image in the form of another set of twins: two sons raised by the father who appear to have inherited aspects of his cruelty. The film is clearly wrestling with questions of generational trauma and whether cycles of violence can ever be broken.
The ideas are fascinating. The problem is that they are often more fascinating than the story itself. By the time the film reaches its conclusion, I found myself appreciating what it symbolised more than I felt the emotional weight of it. The ending arrives so abruptly that it barely allows the audience time to process what has happened before moving on.
That might ultimately explain my mixed feelings about Is God Is. I admire it more than I enjoy it. There is intelligence here. There is ambition. There are images and ideas that linger long after the credits roll. But I never became fully invested in the revenge quest unfolding in front of me. Instead, I found myself standing at a slight distance, analysing the symbolism and thematic architecture.
For some viewers, that may be enough. For me, the best symbolic films work on multiple levels at once. They succeed first as stories and only then reveal their deeper meanings. Is God Is has no shortage of ideas but it never finds the emotional immediacy needed to make those ideas hit with their full force.
What remains is an interesting film, a thoughtful film and at times a beautiful film. I just couldn't shake the feeling that it might also have been a great one.
Is God Is is streaming on Prime Video.