'Aisha' review: Excellent refugee drama brings out the best in 'Avengers,' 'Crown' stars
“Aisha” largely tells its story in close-ups of Letitia Wright’s expressive face.
Samuel Goldwyn Films
Letitia Wright is world-famous for her role as Shuri in the “Black Panther” and “Avengers" films and Josh O’Connor is best known for his work on the TV series “Peaky Blinders” and “The Crown” and his recent co-starring role in “Challengers,” and both are versatile and gifted and screen-commanding performers who are well-deserving of the accolades and success they’ve achieved. They are stars. They would be stars in any era.
Which brings us to arguably their best work yet.
Three years ago, Wright and O’Connor teamed with the Irish writer-director Frank Berry on a film that was initially titled “Provision” but was renamed “Aisha,” after Wright’s character. After a world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in June of 2022 and releases in the United Kingdom and Ireland later that year, “Aisha” is finally getting a commercial release in the States, and while we know "Aisha" will be seen by only a fraction of the viewers who have enjoyed the work done by Wright and O’Connor in the aforementioned projects, the hope here is that if you have the opportunity to see this film, you will take advantage of that chance. This is one of the best movies of the year, featuring two of our finest actors at the top of their game. Wright’s lead performance is worthy of major award nominations, as is O’Connor’s supporting work.
Wright’s Aisha Osagie is a Nigerian refugee who has been in Ireland for a year, having fled her homeland after her father and brother were killed and she was brutally assaulted because her father had been unable to pay back loans he had taken to pay for Aisha’s university education. Under Ireland’s strict and much-maligned Direct Provision system (hence that earlier title of “Provision”), Aisha must stay in a residence that feels like a quasi-prison, as she prepares for the interview that will determine whether she can stay in Ireland and also bring her mother (Rosemary Aimyekagbon), who is in hiding in Lagos and is still in danger, to stay with her.
Writer-director Berry and cinematographer Tom Comerford follow Aisha’s almost Kafkaesque journey in a docudrama fashion that favors closeups of Wright’s incredibly effective and often beautifully subtle facial expressions and line deliveries. Aisha works as an assistant at a Dublin hairdressing salon where everyone is nice (albeit a little condescending at times).
At "home," she tries not to butt heads with Francis (Stuart Graham), the manager at her residence who gives the outward appearance of being courtly and decent, but is in fact a controlling, um, jerk. Even a small infraction such as Aisha bringing in her own halal meat purchased from a local deli (she doesn’t trust the so-called halal food provided by the residence) and microwaving it in the kitchen of the residence earns Francis’ disfavor.
O’Connor’s Conor Healy is a socially awkward recovering addict with a prison record who takes a job as night shift security at the residence. Forever hunched over and casting a wary eye at the world, like a child or a puppy who has caused trouble and fully expects to be punished, Conor is stricken by how poorly the residents are treated. He strikes up a tentative friendship with Aisha, first sneaking her into the kitchen to microwave her meals after hours, eventually sharing halting but sweet conversations with her on the bus.
When Aisha is suddenly relocated to a residence outside Dublin that consists of rows of small trailers lined up in a parking lot, she loses her job and seems further away than ever from gaining asylum. She tells Conor that her life is too complicated, too filled with anguish, to even entertain any kind of personal relationship, but Conor is persistent in his own quiet way. (The moment when Conor asks Aisha if it’s all right if he kisses her is beautiful and heartbreaking and devastatingly powerful. We’re hoping against hope and the hard cold facts that they’ll somehow be able to forge some kind of life together.)
At times Aisha comes close to breaking; even the bureaucrats who are on her side encourage her to go into great and painful detail about the attacks on her and her family, in order to prove she’ll truly be in danger if she’s sent back home. You want to scream at these people to look at her, to LISTEN to her, to SEE her. Aisha keeps saying she’s not interested in a handout; all she wants is to be safe. How can that be too much to ask?