Is God Is (2026) Review: A Game of Revenge Played Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Is God Is, is a road-trip story of sisterhood, revenge, and the ties that bind. Writer-director Aleshea Harris has a unique eye, carving an intriguing path through the narrative with artistic shots and scenes that make this movie feel like it exists somewhere between a dark fairytale and a fever dream.

Based on Harris’s 2018 Off-Broadway play of the same name, the film has a lean 1-hour 39-minute running time and is structured around fraternal twins Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) moving two steps forward and one step back across their revenge-themed fantastical gameboard towards their prize.

When the girls meet their mother, Ruby, aka God, a woman they thought was dead, she exists in this ethereal, almost ancestral space surrounded by her maidens that make sure her hair is done and her nails are fresh. The audience is shoved into her memories as she tells the girls how they got the burns that scar them; it’s a haunting set piece that does a lot of heavy lifting. The sepia tone is reminiscent of a noir film, combined with the Kansas scenes in The Wizard of Oz, which only adds to the fantastical elements of the film. In this space we are trapped with Ruby and her version of events. We feel the fear and the violence being puffed out of the obscured figure of her ex-husband, who is responsible for the women’s pain and scars. There is a nice, subtle parallel in the girls seeing their mother as God and their father as the devil. While she lives in a halo of self-care, he exists in a plume of smoke.

This backstory is the first role of the dice that sends Racine and Aniya on their way and shifts the film into another gear.

Young and Johnson do a really good job of twinning, with the on-screen telepathy subtitles being a particularly nice and often humorous touch. The dynamic is quickly established, and their bond is cemented time and time again. There is a claustrophobia and a toxicity to their relationship, which keeps the characters engaged. Is God Is also features a number of cameos that strengthen the world of the film, and, lucky for Racine and Anaia, there is one at almost every stop.

From Vivica A. Fox’s hooka-smoking herald to Erika Alexander as a deluded and devout church leader. Janelle Monáe as a woman ready to escape and Sterling K. Brown as the twins’ father and the target of their unholy mission. The supporting cast brings plenty of colour to the girls’ journey and an abundance of talent to the plate.

Along the way, however, there are a few plot pitfalls and twinges of incompleteness in the world that has been created. Characters disappear from the gameboard, and the lack of conclusiveness echoes right through to the credits. One such example is Ruby, who sets the girls off on their adventure, and we never see her again or know if she ever finished getting her hair braided.

It’s a common theme for this movie, which doesn’t quite lean all the way into a specific genre, theme or tone. The bold and vivid character and colour that it sets itself up with begins to drain halfway through, which is a true disappointment. The movie is funny-ish. It’s horror-ish. It’s feminist-ish, and that lack of a definitive line creates an unstable structure. It’s Kill Bill meets Thelma & Louise meets Into The Woods, and a more controlled central theme could have given this movie the strength to just be.

So there it is. You won’t leave seeing God, but you might come away wishing the film had trusted its own strange and colourful world a little more. Come for some truly interesting pockets of filmmaking, a brilliantly committed central pairing and some well-acted cameos.

Rating: 2.5/5

Is God Is is currently streaming on Prime Video in the UK.