Is God Is comes to us from writer/director/producer Aleshea Harris (alongside producer Tessa Thompson), here making her feature debut with an adaptation of her own stage play. It tells the story of twin sisters Racine and Anaia (respectively played by Kara Young and Mallory Johnson), who spent most of their lives bouncing between foster homes after a house fire left them disfigured and killed their parents. A couple decades later, it turns out that their mother (Ruby, aka “God”, played by Vivica A. Fox) is only now succumbing to her injuries and her dying wish is for her daughters to kill their father.

Yes, it turns out their anonymous father (credited as “the Monster”, played by Sterling K. Brown) was the abusive asshole who walked through a restraining order and burned the house down, leaving his wife and daughters for dead. In the years following, he fucked off and started a new life under a new identity, and then repeated the process. So now our protagonists have to track him down, following the trail of heartbreak and destruction left in their father’s wake. And we’re off to the races.

Right up front, there are two things worth mentioning. First, we’ve got a straightforward revenge thriller premise. In turn, this makes for a plot that’s easy to follow, with an episodic structure as we follow the twins from one self-contained scene to the next.

Second, the cast is phenomenal from start to finish. Young and Johnson sell their sisterly chemistry with such effortless grace that it’s easy to buy the near-telepathic link between them (cleverly illustrated with captions). Fox and Brown play their respective roles with the requisite charisma. Erika Alexander, Mykelti Williamson, and Janelle freaking Monae all make huge impressions with precious little screen time.

But then we get into the fine thematic details. This is where things get a whole lotta interesting and a whole lotta messy.

See, Racine is the kind of idiot who thinks that violence is always the answer, and Anaia is the kind of idiot who thinks that violence is never the answer. Naturally, this contrast makes for some compelling character drama on the themes of family, redemption, vengeance, justice, etc. This contrast also works surprisingly well with exploring themes of beauty and self-image, as the both of them take differing approaches on standing up for themselves and each other as severely burned black women living in a white patriarchy that sees them as ugly. We even get a neat scene that challenges those notions when the sisters briefly pose as strippers.

…Right up until the scene falls back on the same old beauty standards that the sisters have been grappling with since the beginning. I might also add that despite all Anaia’s protestations, pretty much everyone in the sisters’ way does in fact turn out to be an irredeemable asshole in clinical need of a rock to the face. So it’s Anaia who has to adjust her ways to be more like Racine, rather than the both of them coming to find some common ground. Personally, I don’t find that as interesting.

Then we have the religious angle. Kind of a big deal, as it’s right there in the title. And it’s by far the most confusing aspect of the film.

Let’s start with the twins’ mother, whom the twins themselves refer to as God because she made them. Willfully forgetting the fact that it takes two parents to make a child, so that logic means their father is just as worthy of the “God” label. Maybe even more so, considering — even by the twins’ own admission! — he was directly responsible for the trauma that made them who and what they are.

I might further add that the mother is horribly burned and in squalid conditions, which would traditionally be coded for Satan. As opposed to the Monster, who shows up as a pristine figure in a huge immaculate house, fitting for a symbol of God. In direct contrast to all the unspeakably barbaric things he does all through the picture.

And of course that’s not even getting started on Divine (that’s Alexander’s role), who’s running what could only be described as a cult for the glory of God, directly inspired by the Monster and all his horrific actions. We’ve also got the twins’ various half-brothers, all of whom are some breed of shitwad stuck in their daddy’s pocket. Not unlike how the sisters (Racine, most especially) use their mother’s dying wish as a mission from God to justify their bloody revenge.

As an allegory for God and Satan, the metaphors are all too muddied to make any kind of sense. Unless the film was meant as a kind of anti-religious screed, arguing that God and Satan, good and evil, judgment and redemption, all look the same from our lowly mortal vantage. I’m not entirely sure that’s what the filmmakers intended, but it checks out all the same.

Overall, Is God Is works perfectly well as a sexy, stylish, and insanely angry revenge thriller. Granted, the plot is depressingly predictable and the themes are a bit muddied, but that doesn’t take away from the superb performances and the enjoyably bloody action. It all evens out to a promising feature debut from a new filmmaker with great potential.

I’m fine with recommending this, but I’m far more interested to hear what’s next for Aleshea Harris.