Is God Is

Aleshea Harris turned her Obie-winning 2018 play into her own directorial debut. Twin sisters, scarred in body and face by a fire their father set, are dispatched on a mission of revenge by their dying mother. The film treats this not as domestic drama but as a stylised blood feud where the western, Greek tragedy and blaxploitation keep bleeding into one another. Kara Young and Mallori Johnson play the sisters, with Janelle Monáe, Erika Alexander, Sterling K. Brown and Vivica A. Fox filling out the cast. To carry the play's rhythmic, incantatory language into cinema, Harris uses intertitles, abrupt washes of colour and openly theatrical staging. That choice split the response neatly in two: those who praised the formal nerve, and those who felt held at arm's length. Orion Pictures released it in May 2026 and it underperformed commercially. The failure is bound up with what makes it interesting, because the film has no interest at all in settling into the shape of a revenge picture. Who it is for: viewers drawn to theatre-derived work that takes formal risks and stylises its violence. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a realistic crime drama or a straightforward revenge thriller.