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When an administrator says \u201cI\u2019m sorry\u201d at a shelter for asylum seekers in \u201cAisha,\u201d the phrase has seldom sounded so galling. An exemplar of the upending power people can wield in bureaucracies, the administrator repeatedly makes things difficult for Aisha, a young Nigerian woman petitioning for permanent residence in Ireland.<\/p>\n
The \u201cBlack Panther\u201d star Letitia Wright descends from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to give a quietly fierce performance as Aisha, an asylum seeker in the writer-director Frank Berry\u2019s drama. The reasons for her request unfold during visits with her legal counsel, in video talks with her mother in Lagos and at the careful prodding of the shelter\u2019s fledgling security guard (played with hangdog sympathy by Josh O\u2019Connor of \u201cChallengers\u201d). All the while, Wright breathes deep vulnerability into Aisha\u2019s unsurprising reticence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
At the beauty salon where she works, Aisha\u2019s rightly cagey as she listens to her customers. But at the shelter, she turns warm, when she gives makeovers to fellow immigrants. As he did for his award-winning prison film, \u201cMichael Inside,\u201d Berry used nonprofessional actors with intimate experience of the system \u2014 here, Ireland\u2019s International Protection Office, which processes asylum applications \u2014<\/strong> he wanted to depict. It\u2019s a gesture that keeps the film from lapsing into melodrama.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Will Aisha convince the decision makers that she cannot safely return to Nigeria? Will Aisha and Conor\u2019s hushed friendship bud into something more? \u201cAisha\u201d resists tidy answers through the gentle force of its performances and by staying on the rebuffs and uncertainty Aisha suffers.<\/p>\n Aisha<\/strong>
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n