AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
In the new film "Is God Is," a mother and her twin daughters, Racine and Anaia, are set on fire. They survive, but the three women are left with significant scars on their bodies and on their psyches. Years later, the twins' dying mother reaches out with a message - kill the man who set them ablaze, their father.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IS GOD IS")
VIVICA A FOX: (As Ruby the God) Make your daddy dead, real dead.
RASCOE: The film stars Kara Young and Mallori Johnson as the twins. Sterling K. Brown also stars as the twins' father, known as the Monster. Joining us now is Aleshea Harris. She wrote and directed the film, which is based on her play. We're also joined by Kara Young, who plays the brash sister Racine. Thank you both for being with us today.
ALESHEA HARRIS: My pleasure.
KARA YOUNG: Thank you so much for having me.
RASCOE: The main characters, two twin girls - they both have these prominent scars on their body from being burnt by their father in childhood. The scars are central to their motivations throughout the film. Aleshea, why have the scars as an identifying characteristic?
HARRIS: Yeah, I think because there's an inherent drama to the placement of the scars on each young woman's body, right? The scars on Racine's hand mean that she's had one kind of existence. The scars on her sister's face mean that she's had another. And I think there's something about the tragedy of Anaia experiencing so much more pain and abuse because of this thing that happened to her. She would have looked like her sister, right? She would have had that beauty, that it's had such a devastating impact on their lives.
RASCOE: Kara, for you, you're playing the twin who has the burns that are not as visible on the face, but she carries around this - I would say, kind of the chip on her shoulder because she has to be the protector.
YOUNG: Yeah, stepping into this world and knowing that Racine and Anaia exist together, and they have their entire lives - and I feel that in our sisterhood. I do carry Anaia's scars with me because I feel her pain in a lot of ways.
RASCOE: Yeah. Yeah. So we have a clip showing some of that duality, right? Here's a clip where the twins are discussing how to kill their father.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IS GOD IS")
YOUNG: (As Racine) I know. We'll push him off a building.
MALLORI JOHNSON: (As Anaia) What if he grab one of us on the way down?
YOUNG: (As Racine) What if we knock him out, then push him off the building?
JOHNSON: (As Anaia) How hard you have to hit someone to knock him out? I don't like it.
YOUNG: (As Racine) You don't like none of it.
JOHNSON: (As Anaia) Cine, we ain't killers.
YOUNG: (As Racine) We come from a man who tried to kill our mama and a mama who wants to kill that man. It's in the blood.
RASCOE: It's in the blood.
YOUNG: It's in the blood.
RASCOE: Blood plays a big role in this movie. What do you think about that idea, that killing is in your blood, that it's something that they are carrying, that violence?
HARRIS: You know, I love a bit of ambiguity, which is annoying to people, but I'ma name it. I love a bit of ambiguity. Were these women destined, right? Was it some fate - right? - that one have these scars in one place and one have the other and that things play out exactly as they did? Or was it purely choice? Did Racine have the option to say - you know what? - let's go home? Or was there something in her person that spurred her on? We have some clues, I think, that move in either direction that could pose either argument.
RASCOE: And you do use this visual device to show the twins communicating without talking and text of what each one of them is thinking appears on the screen as the twins make eye contact or facial expressions. And this continues throughout the film. Why do it in that way? Why present it in that way?
HARRIS: Twins have their own language between them. Certainly, these twins do. They have an energy that no one else can feel that's very secret and private. And so it felt like a - just a natural way that was inherent to them to let the audience in on what their thoughts were.
YOUNG: When Aleshea was speaking, I literally thought about Black girls' language, like us as a community when we talking to each other, and we could just be, like, across the room and just be like (vocalizing). You know, like, that vocal expression was in the ways in which we would've communicated across the room or communicated to each other and know exactly what we mean.
RASCOE: Well, let's talk about Sterling K. Brown's character. He's the father of the girls, and he's so evil. I mean, just, ooh, my goodness. He manages to seduce, marry multiple women, make babies with multiple women. Tell me how you balanced those qualities in the Monster.
HARRIS: Sure. So I mean, I think I knew the bad guy part of him, right? I knew I wanted to keep him mysterious. So in the film, it wasn't difficult to make him a specter - right? - who carried an energy that was dark and scary, and we get little bits and pieces of him from different storytellers in the story, right? But what's not in the play and is new to the movie is that when we finally meet him, he's giving - what I put in the script was - it's like Obama. It's like suburban, unassuming man in his khakis. You know what I'm saying?
(LAUGHTER)
HARRIS: And I found that, and I'm really glad that I found it because to me, it was more delicious and interesting and subversive but also true to life that sometimes people get away with terrible things because there is something charming or appealing about them.
RASCOE: What do you think about Black men in this movie? - because, I mean, most of the men in the movie - I mean, pretty much all the men, they're pretty bad. And they are Black. And oftentimes, you know, we have these discussions - whether it's "Waiting To Exhale," whether it's "The Color Purple," whether it's whatever - you know, about how Black men are portrayed in the movies. And did either of you think about that at all or have any take on that?
HARRIS: This has come up before in my work because I work with Black actors. That's the palette, is I'm telling a Black story. So we don't exist in a vacuum. I understand, of course, the ways that Black men are pathologized and stereotyped. I don't know how to talk about misogyny in my community without talking about Black men who commit an act like this. These things happen in the world, and I sort of bristle when anyone suggests that because of the ways that Black men are pathologized, I don't get to talk about it in my story.
RASCOE: Vengeance is so central to this film. It doesn't come without cost. Talk to me about, like, what you viewed vengeance as, and how can vengeance exist in a world without being completely destructive? Is that possible?
HARRIS: I don't know. That's a really big question that I think, you know, we could spend hours trying to unpack.
RASCOE: Yeah.
HARRIS: But I do hope that what people will sit with this movie, among other things, is the cost of seeking vengeance or attempting to seek vengeance on the vengeance seeker. But that if one has been harmed and one can - seeks to, you know, commit some act of harm against the perpetrator, what does that cost you? I think it comes at a cost. I think you're living in the wound - right? - rather than sort of living with it. And yeah, I hope that the people think about that.
RASCOE: That was writer-director Aleshea Harris and star Kara Young. You can watch their film, "Is God Is," in theaters now. Aleshea Harris, Kara Young, thank you so much for speaking with me today.
HARRIS: My pleasure, Ayesha. Thank you.
YOUNG: Thank you so much, Ayesha. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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