IS GOD IS
(director/writer: Aleshe Harris; screenwriter: based on the play by Harris; cinematographer: Alexander Dynan; editor: Jay Rabinowitz; music: Joseph Shirley, Moses Sumney; cast: Kara Young (Racine), Mallory Johnson (Anaia), Viveca A. Fox (Ruby. mother), Sterling K. Brown (father), Janelle Monáe (Angie), Xavier Mills (Scotch), Justen Ross (Riley), Mykelti Williamson (Chuck Hall, lawyer), Erika Alexander (Divine), Josiah Cross (Ezekiel); Runtime: 99; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Aleshe Harris, Tessa Thompson, Kishori Rajan, Riva Marker, Janicza Bravo; Orion/Amazom MGM Studios; 2026)
“A powerful sisterhood story of revenge.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The debut feature film by Aleshe Harris is a powerful sisterhood story of revenge. It’s based on Harris’ 2018 off-Broadway stage play.
Twin sisters Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallory Johnson) are children when they escape a fire set by their demented father (Sterling K. Brown) in a domestic dispute with their mother Ruby (Viveca A. Fox). Mom is presumed dead after torched while in her bathtub, and the girls are permanently scarred from the house fire. They are placed in foster homes, where they are unhappy. When the girls, who live in the east, are out of foster care, they are in their late twenties and work as office cleaners when they surprisingly receive a letter to visit their mom, living as a deformed recluse in the south. They thought she was dead. But they drive to see her at her dying bedside. Mom tells them she was severely injured but survived, and asks her telepathic daughters to “Make your daddy dead,” to avenge his evil. The girls feel obligated to do so, even if they don’t have the temperament to kill him.
What horrors have befallen this Black family is viewed as a metaphor for life in America for Blacks, and becomes the film’s theme.
The story then follows their father’s current wife, Angie (Janelle Monáe), who lives in comfort, drives a Mercedes and has twins, the aggressive Scotch (Xavier Mills) and the more sensitive Riley (Justen Ross). Racine and Anaia watch them from nearby.
“Is God Is” is a sad tale about Black women determined to battle each other and about toxic masculinity. Some viewers might be upset with the violence the Black women experience, but the film’s power is in showing how the human spirit can overcome almost everything–a similar message the Black church delivers in its sermons to its flock.
REVIEWED ON 5/24/2026 GRADE: B
dennisschwartzreviews.com