A Nigerian asylum seeker in Ireland is befriended by a local man with his own difficult past in Frank Berry’s tender drama about the agony of bureaucratic limbo.
, Irish writer-director Frank Berry’s moving reflection on the plight of asylum seekers butting up against the cold indifference of bureaucracy. Matching Wright scene for scene is Josh O’Connor, again demonstrating that he’s among the best actors to emerge from Britain in the past decade, playing a diffident young man with his own troubled history who offers Aisha the balm of human connection.
Berry specializes in social-realist dramas that draw on his background in documentary and community filmmaking. Those roots are evident here in a film that grew out of his research into Ireland’s controversial Direct Provision system, which aims to provide basic needs to individuals awaiting decisions on their applications for international protection.