Adapting a play into a feature film is not for the faint of heart. For every Casablanca, The Father, His Girl Friday, or Stalag 17 that yield rich creative rewards, there are a host of failures like Wild Mountain Thyme, The Prom, The Women (2008), or Rent littering cinematic history. Numerous pitfalls await the motion pictures striving to become the next Rope. Sometimes, what knocks audiences dead on stage plays as inert on the silver screen. Others struggle to break free of frustratingly rigid visuals. Some are just straight-up miscast messes. The newest attempt at adaptation success is Is God Is, an adaptation of Aleshea Harris’s 2018 Off-Broadway play. As written and directed by Harris herself in her feature debut, it finds deeply specific ways to thrive, joining the upper echelon of stage-to-screen adaptations.

Twin sisters Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson) have to look out for each other. They’re all they’ve got. Years earlier, their father, known only as The Monster (Sterling K. Brown), set their mother, Ruby the God (Vivica A. Fox), on fire. While trying to save her, the girls sustained extreme burns—Racine on one arm, Anaia on her face.

Now grown up, Racine and Anaia live alone in isolation until one day they receive a letter from their mother, whom they assumed dead. Lying in her deathbed, Ruby offers them a mission: find their father and kill him. It’s a revenge mission, one that hits each twin differently. Racine, a lifelong fighter of bullies, relishes the opportunity. Quieter Anaia, meanwhile, remains conflicted over taking any human life, even a scumbag like The Monster. Nonetheless, the pair hit the road together, searching for clues to locate their father.

Early on, Is God Is demonstrates Racine and Anaia’s bond (as well as their “twin powers”) through on-screen text conversations. With one tilt of her head while brushing her teeth, Racine poses a question Anaia quickly responds to, with nary an audible word. It’s a clever demonstration of the two’s deep intertwining, with the gothic-looking font lending it extra specificity. Best of all, though, is how it demonstrates the film’s commitment to making the best of its new medium. Harris immediately exploits cinema’s distinct visual possibilities, offering a detail wholly unique from the stage version.

Throughout, Harris stalwartly commits to a fascinatingly nuanced tone and aesthetic. Sometimes, Is God Is evokes Drunken Angel’s ending, poignantly exploring the contrast of grim and hopeful worldviews in the wake of unspeakable tragedy. Does towering anguish inspire pervasive contempt? Is it better to cling to optimism even after the worst transpires? At other times, the movie is a rip-roaring revenge yarn full of dark comedy. Finally, there are quieter moments devoted to the sisters tending to each other.

I adore Racine and Anaia’s complicated, messy, and moving dynamic. Moments like quarrels that end in a reaffirmation of their commitment to each other or applying ice cubes to each other’s burn wounds powerfully communicate decades of lived experience. Young and Johnson’s performances superbly accentuate their bonds, effortlessly exuding a believable sisterly dynamic without losing track of their wildly varying personalities. Young, for instance, always uncovers creative, subtle ways to suggest Racine is itching for a fight. Johnson, meanwhile, deftly uses withdrawn body language without obscuring Anaia’s empathetic and emotional psyche.

While keeping Racine and Anaia centered in all plot developments, Harris demonstrates a mastery of tonal shifts. As a result, Is God Is can contain gentle moments like the ice cubes, frightening ones like their mother’s burning, or outright entertaining ones. For example, an encounter between the leads and Chuck Hall the Lawyer (Mykelti Williamson), is a riot. As Hall is missing his tongue, he can only communicate through words on a small whiteboard. It is the kind of gag that could get old in a hurry. However, Harris’s skill with mixing tones and Williamson’s acting mine the one big scene for plenty of hysterical mileage. Harris pulls a similar trick during an encounter with The Monster’s former lover, Divine the Healer (Erika Alexander), relying heavily on the amusingly detailed sets in her house, courtesy of production designer Freyja Bardell.

Such gripping tableaus reflect what is a terrific-looking production right from the get-go. The filmmakers establish this early through a flashback sequence that defines the feature’s distinct hue for representing the past, evoking the brown-tinged, lived-in images of A Special Day. This coloring strikingly suggests these memories have been replayed in the characters’ heads so often they’ve grown faded, like a vintage Polaroid.

Happily, Is God Is isn’t afraid of lively colors. A drab workplace features bright blue walls. A later “scandalous” sequence utilizes vibrant red lighting while green dominates Ruby the God’s home. While Is God Is dabbles in deeply heavy material ranging from trauma to internalized misogyny to classism, Harris sees no cause to tell that story through dull, lifeless coloring.

Despite how intimidating adapting a play for the screen can be, especially as a directorial debut, Harris assuredly guides it into a new medium. And all seemingly without breaking a sweat. A remarkable achievement on all fronts, Is God Is is a vengeance-fueled whirlwind not to be missed.

Is God Is exacts its vengeance in theaters everywhere on May 15.

Is God Is Trailer: