When an administrator says “I’m sorry” at a safe haven for asylum seekers in “Aisha,” the word has seldom sounded so galling. An exemplar of the upending energy folk can display in bureaucracies, the administrator time and again makes issues tough for Aisha, a tender Nigerian girl petitioning for everlasting place of dwelling in Eire.
The “Black Panther” big name Letitia Wright descends from the Surprise Cinematic Universe to provide a quietly fierce efficiency as Aisha, an asylum seeker within the writer-director Frank Berry’s drama. The explanations for her request spread all through visits together with her prison recommend, in video talks together with her mom in Lagos and on the cautious prodding of the safe haven’s fledgling safety barricade (performed with hangdog condolense via Josh O’Connor of “Challengers”). The entire day, Wright breathes deep vulnerability into Aisha’s unsurprising reticence.
On the good looks salon the place she works, Aisha’s rightly cagey as she listens to her consumers. However on the safe haven, she turns heat, when she provides makeovers to fellow immigrants. As he did for his award-winning jail movie, “Michael Inside,” Berry worn nonprofessional actors with intimate revel in of the gadget — right here, Eire’s Global Coverage Place of business, which processes asylum programs — he sought after to depict. It’s a officialism that helps to keep the movie from lapsing into melodrama.
Will Aisha persuade the verdict makers that she can’t safely go back to Nigeria? Will Aisha and Conor’s hushed friendship bud into one thing extra? “Aisha” resists tidy solutions throughout the affectionate power of its performances and via staying at the rebuffs and hesitation Aisha suffers.
AishaNot rated. Working presen: 1 date 34 mins. In theaters.
