Rare is the cinephile with a genuinely omnivorous palate; on the screen, as in life, most tend to like what they like. Noting this isn’t exactly breaking new ground, but the implicit assumption that it only pertains to genre is lacking in dimension. Sure, there are comedy fans and others who swoon over costume dramas, horror obsessives and those who wouldn’t touch the stuff with a ten foot pole, but some preferences are far more nebulous. Zoom in, and the difference between fondness and distaste can come down to anything from pacing to wardrobing to sound design, but Is God Is conducts its taste test from a bird’s eye view. Its ambitions are unmissable regardless of vantage point, as impossible to deny as the hazy shortcomings that haunt its margins. Acting simultaneously as a movie and a Rorschach test, it asks the viewer, flamboyantly and with much bluster, if there’s value in shooting for the moon if you’re destined to miss the mark by centimeters.

The call really is that close, though the final verdict is clear as day, much like the guilt of the film’s final boss. Despite being unnamed and off screen, his sins are evident on the flesh of his adult twin daughters, Racine (Kara Young) and Anaia (Mallori Johnson), both bearing scar tissue from a fire he set to their childhood home. His arson wasn’t intended for them, but rather their mother Ruby (Vivica A. Fox), whose resultant injuries doomed the girls to an adolescent odyssey through the foster care system. After decades of silence, the death bed-ridden matriarch finally reaches out, but love and reconciliation aren’t on the menu. It’s time for revenge of the mortal variety, and she’s got no one to turn to but her own progeny.

That’s about as dire a set-up as you’ll find in a widely released feature, though writer/director Aleshea Harris utterly refuses to be pigeon holed by her tragic premise. Adapting her own award-winning play of the same name, the first time helmer is ever-aggressive in adjusting the dials, racing through tones and aesthetics like they’re going out of style. If video rental stores still existed, assigning this one to its proper shelf would be a real doozy, as accurately described as a black-hearted buddy comedy as it is a revenge thriller or gothic religious allegory. Even magical realism gets its turn at center stage, but what else do you expect from a flick that saddles domestic abuse alongside a reimagining of the cologne cabinet scene from Anchorman? If there’s a type of experience you’re after, Is God Is has it tucked somewhere inside its 100 minute runtime, a high wire act that’s ready to tumble from a great height at any given moment.

Somehow it doesn’t, and watching Harris make it from one side to the other without calamity is its own kind of spectacle, especially given her status as a newcomer to the medium. The optical clumsiness that defines most stage adaptations is nowhere to be seen here, replaced by Alexander Dynan’s vivid, restless cinematography and Jay Rabinowitz’s playful, ecstatic editing. Young and Johnson are similarly enterprising, believable in their psychic connection as well as their contradicting evocations of rage, filling out a roster of considerable talent on either side of the camera. Were they all training their efforts on a more modest affair, there’d be no second guessing their accomplishments. They’re blue collar workers, experts in their field, who just so happen to be aboard a space ship.

Perhaps no one could have wrangled such a wily flick into the classic it so clearly aspires to be, though the air of missed opportunity still lingers. Harris’ understanding of her own writing, and the curious pitch it requires, is irrefutable, but knowing the right moves doesn’t mean you’re capable of making them. Everything looks handsome, but never unique. The performances are sturdy, not towering. Jokes hit periodically, but always at the expense of drama, an acrimonious relationship that operates just the same in reverse. There’s a parallel universe where this one is a masterpiece, but in our reality, there’s no evidence of mastery, just a gaggle of capable human hands attempting to do the lord’s work. Some will wish they stayed in their weight class, and others will champion the audacity. It all comes down to a simple question; is the quest for glory worth something in and of itself, even when it’s destined to come up just short?