Aleshea Harris’ 2018 Off Broadway play Is God Is has been adapted into a 99-minute film that turns a revenge story into a bloody, neck-snapping jolt. The movie stars Kara Young, Mallori Johnson and Sterling K. Brown, with the sisters at its center shown at 21 as they set out to kill their abusive father.

Young plays Racine, and Johnson plays Anaia, two sisters whose lives were shaped by a tragic fire in their childhood home. Anaia was left facially disfigured, while Racine carried permanent burn marks elsewhere on her body, and the film follows them as they turn toward the man responsible.

That man is credited only as “the Monster,” a choice that strips away any hint of grandeur and leaves the character as a plain source of harm. Variety described the film as a tale in which the Pulitzer-shortlisted playwright keeps her raw verbal lyricism while bringing a visceral cinematic touch to the screen, and said the target is really just a man.

The film also shifts Harris from page and stage to the director’s chair. She did not direct the play when it premiered Off Broadway in 2018, but she directs this screen version, which was shot by Alexander Dynan and edited by Blair McClendon and Jay Rabinowitz.

What makes the adaptation land today is that it does not dress itself up as a moral-justice drama. It stays with the revenge impulse, and that keeps the story blunt: two women, one father, and a wound that never closed. The movie’s force comes from how little it tries to soften that line.