From left: Kara Young and Mallori Johnson in 'Is God Is.'

Patti Perret/Amazon MGM Studios

Share on Facebook

Share on X

Google Preferred

Share to Flipboard

Show additional share options

Share on LinkedIn

Share on Pinterest

Share on Reddit

Share on Tumblr

Share on Whats App

Send an Email

Print the Article

Post a Comment

[The following story contains spoilers from Is God Is.]

A great playwright does not always make a great filmmaker, but Aleshea Harris proves the path is there. Making her feature screenwriting and directing debut with Is God Is, an adaptation of her play which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, Harris is behind one of the year’s wildest and most acclaimed films, sitting at a 97 percent freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

With inspirations ranging from ancient Greek tragedy to the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou, Is God Is brings a classic revenge-narrative structure to the always bloody, brutally funny, violently sad story of twin sisters Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson), who go on the hunt for their father (Sterling K. Brown) at their mother’s request after learning that his physical abuse is the reason for their disfiguring scars from childhood. Along the way, they encounter a range of his acquaintances, played by the likes of Mykelti Williamson, Janelle Monáe and Erika Alexander.

Related Stories

Nicolas Cage and 'Spider-Noir' Team on Bringing Bogart to Superheroes: "We Didn't Want to Make a Version of Spider-Man That Anyone Had Seen"

Movies

'Is God Is' Review: Vivica A. Fox and Sterling K. Brown Lead Powerful Ensemble in Southern Revenge Drama That's Stronger on Substance Than Style

Harris introduces an audacious cinematic language all her own, one that might take a little longer for audiences to catch onto — in a wide release of about 1,500 theaters, it brought in just $2.2 million over opening weekend — but has landed with those who’ve given it a chance, earning strong audience scores across the board. In a spoilery conversation, Harris detailed her process of transferring the film from stage to screen, her biggest learning curves behind the camera, and what it meant to tell a revenge story about Black women.

Kara Young and Mallori Johnson with director Aleshea Harris (center) on the set of ‘Is God Is.’

Did you have particular interest in filmmaking coming into this?

Coming into making the film, certainly, I was excited. I was jazzed. But I have not had an aspiration to be a filmmaker the way that other people have. I didn’t go to film school. I was a theater person. It existed for me like, if that opportunity came, sure, I would take it, I would try, but I think I expected it would be further out in my journey.

So what about the possibilities of it, as they related to this particular play, excited you?

When I write, I think in pictures — I also studied visual art before I studied theater. I kind of had a brain that was ready [for] that. I was really challenged about the tone of it, some of which we experienced in the visuals, obviously, but also in the performances. How do we hit this mythic register? That was all about curation: How do we curate the spaces that we’re in? How do we curate the colors and the costumes, and when is there simultaneity and the performances? It was really just a journey of thinking super specifically and communicating. Also there wasn’t a lot of time, so I’m being very quick, well-prepared and ready to go.

How did you find attracting the financing you needed, the resources you needed to make the movie at the intended scale?

There were a few studios that were interested, a little bit of a bidding war, and we decided to go with Amazon–MGM–Orion. There was a long conversation about where to shoot it, how to shoot it, how to trim the budget. I made edits to the script. To that end, we all had to sort of tighten our purse strings and figure out how to make the thing go.

What was the toughest thing to compromise on?

Trimming the boy twin stories, and especially since Justen [Ross] and Xavier [Mills] are so good. In the play, there’s a lot more of those boys, so it would’ve been cool to get to see what life has been like for them in that household.

Kara Young and Mallori Johnson are so in sync here, as they needed to be, playing twins with such an intimate understanding of each other. Was the casting process unique there?

Quite a journey. I knew that I wanted two people. We did look at actual sets of twins, but it was really important to me that it’d just be the best actors to portray those roles — who we could buy as two twins. So I cast a lot. I looked at a lot of women. I would have Mallori and Kara in scenes with other actors, and they would eat that person up. I needed them to be in scenes with each other. When I put t

Why the ‘Is God Is’ Ending Has People Yelling in Screenings