Justice & Vengeance: A film review of ‘Is God Is’
- Dr. TJ
- 11 minutes ago
- 4 min read
There are revenge films that ask whether vengeance is justified. Is God Is asked me a different question: what remains after vengeance? That question haunted me long after the credits rolled.
Sisterhood sits at the center of the film. Revenge provides the momentum, but Anaia and Racine give it soul. The actresses playing the twins are extraordinary, creating two women shaped by the same trauma who nevertheless move through the world with entirely different emotional registers. Anaia reaches toward healing while Racine accepts that blood is the only language left. Neither perspective is privileged over the other, and their bond remains palpable through every disagreement. Their chemistry makes the emotional stakes as gripping as the violence.
Vivica A. Fox is mesmerizing. Though physically confined for much of her appearances, her presence fills every scene. I loved the layered meaning of “God” embodied in her character. She functions simultaneously as mother, judge, and divine authority, issuing commands that echo familiar ideas of faith, obedience, sacrifice, and calling within many Black religious traditions.
Erika Alexander’s character deepens those questions through a woman whose religious devotion and simultaneous delusion about Man who is never coming back makes one wonder about silliness of faith in certain ways. Together, they create fascinating conversations about belief, righteousness, and the stories people tell themselves to survive.
Janelle Monáe appears only briefly, yet she leaves an outsized impression. I immediately wanted her to escape. Then the twins begin peeling back the layers of her character, exposing someone far more complicated than she first appears. My sympathies shifted in real time, and I found myself questioning how quickly we grant grace before knowing the whole story; or perhaps her reaction to the fear of Man brought her out of her character leading to the inevitable.
The cinematography was stunning. Bold colors, stylized violence, and chapter-like storytelling brought Kill Bill to mind (or maybe spaghetti-western in general), though Is God Is possesses a voice entirely its own. The film embraces its theatre/play origins instead of disguising them. Sets, dialogue, and staging retain the character and quality of live performance, a choice I found exhilarating. Viewers unfamiliar with theater may struggle with that stylization, but I appreciated seeing a stage play translated to the screen without sacrificing the qualities that made it a great play in the first place.
The journey toward Sterling K. Brown’s “Man” unfolds with patience and purpose, making the eventual encounter satisfying. Brown’s performance is quietly terrifying. His charm occasionally invites the possibility that remorse or redemption might exist somewhere beneath the surface. A hint to viewers that maybe the story we’ve been told is wrong. Those fleeting moments only make the inevitable conclusion more devastating, reminding us that charisma has often existed alongside cruelty. And much of that exchange reflected the desire for peace and resolution Anaia craved (it’s not lost on me this happened twice with her in the third act).
What has stayed with me most, though, is the ending.
“Careful with vengeance. You never know where the blood will land.”
The line operates as warning, prophecy, and thematic thesis all at once.
Anaia longs for peace and Racine longs for vengeance. Each ultimately receives what she has pursued, and neither arrives whole. Racine seems to understand from the outset that their journey offers no return, extending far beyond the legal consequences of multiple murders. Revenge exacts a deeper cost, reshaping the people who carry it out. Anaia arrives at the end with a measure of plausible deniability in the legal sense (assuming police would just assume Racine was an aggressor and ultimately fell with her victims), leaving us to wrestle with guilt, innocence, complicity, and whether proximity to violence ever leaves someone untouched.
What I admired most is the film’s refusal to resolve its ethical questions for us. A mother sends her daughters to kill. The daughters obey. Man commits horrific acts of violence, though we never witness him murder anyone on screen (until the very end). Every character occupies an uneasy space between victimhood and culpability. Rather than assigning easy “moral” boundaries, Is God Is invites us to think about punishment and revenge, justice and retribution, the price of vengeance and whether that price could ever equal its worth. It also asks us to consider the long shadow of trauma—how violence reproduces itself, how wounds travel across generations, and how every act of revenge leaves its own trail behind.
The film never wipes away the blood it spills. It leaves us sitting with the consequences, trusting the audience to decide, whether justice or vengeance got the final word, and if the difference ultimately even matters.
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