Aisha
[info headline="Release date"]7 December 2018[/info]
[info headline="Language"]English, Hindi[/info]
[info headline="IMDb Rating"]7.4[/info]
[info headline="Genre"]Action, Fantasy, Science Fiction[/info]
[info headline="Cast"]Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson[/info]
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Letitia Wright gives a quietly powerful performance in
“Aisha” as a young Nigerian woman seeking asylum in Ireland and struggling to
overcome one bureaucratic obstacle after another.
Writer-director Frank Berry’s film never devolves into
melodrama – if anything, it may be understated to a fault – but he grounds her
plight in an authentic mixture of daily frustrations and sporadic joys. The
absurdism of the consistent hardships she endures is maddening: An
administrator at the accommodation center where she lives won’t hand her an
important piece of mail she needs, so she misses the bus to her part-time job
at a hair salon, where the owner scolds her for her tardiness. It’s that sort
of thing, day in and day out. She just can't seem to catch a break. There’s
racism behind some of these roadblocks, as well as a certain sadism. To borrow
a phrase that’s been used repeatedly in recent years to describe the treatment
of immigrants to America, the cruelty is the point.
Nevertheless, Aisha perseveres. Wright, so funny and fierce
in the “Black Panther” movies, harnesses that same fire here, indicating her
character’s loneliness and anguish through her restrained body language and
measured speech. We learn a little about the ordeal that drove her from her
homeland through meetings with the immigration lawyer assigned to her case
(Loran Cranitch). Still, she’s understandably reluctant to revisit these
horrors in detail. Wright gives us just enough to sympathize but not enough for
the indifferent officials who will determine her character’s fate.
It’s not all misery, though. We catch early glimpses of the
warm and easy way Aisha connects with people as an aspiring beautician --
putting makeup on the other women in the group home and drawing out their
smiles by helping them feel lovely for an afternoon. Berry immerses us in the
rhythms of Aisha’s daily existence, the highs and lows, with long takes and
unobtrusive, documentary-style camerawork. A Muslim woman, Aisha wakes up early
every morning to pray, and these solitary moments in the stillness seem to
sustain her.
This fly-on-the-wall approach becomes especially crucial
when she strikes up an unlikely friendship with Conor (Josh O’Connor), a new
overnight security guard at the center who serves as the rare source of
kindness in her life. Berry lets us sit in silence with them as they exchange
an unspoken understanding over midnight meals in the industrial kitchen, and
their small talk on the bus eventually evolves into good-natured teasing and
even laughter.
O’Connor, who’s so hot right now between two extremely
different roles in “Challengers” and “La Chimera,” reveals another facet of his
talent here. Gone is the swagger of those performances; with his big, goofy
smile, Conor exudes a hangdog tenderness and an earnest desire to atone for the
sins of his past. O’Connor is so effortlessly appealing and sweet, he makes you
wish there were more to his character. Conor is almost too good to be true in
the way he shows up for Aisha, no matter the time of day, no matter where she's
living once the system forces her to relocate. Still, whether they can forge
some lasting relationship provides another source of simmering tension on top
of the central question of whether Aisha can remain in the country. As the film
progresses, Berry increasingly depicts her isolation, framing her alone at a
bus stop or on the sidewalk in front of a small-town supermarket.
Unfortunately for Aisha – and so many others, as “Aisha”
convincingly conveys – there are no quick and easy answers. The film’s abrupt
but realistic ending, which surely will feel unsatisfying for many viewers,
seems to suggest as much.
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