Aisha Review: Letitia Wright in a Quietly Devastating Study of Ireland's Asylum System

Is Aisha good?

Yes — it holds an 79% Celluloid Score, with critics far more enthusiastic (98/100 Celluloid Editorial Rating) than the still-solid 75% Audience Snapshot. Frank Berry’s drama follows a young Nigerian woman seeking international protection in Ireland, caught in the asylum system’s bureaucratic limbo for years, and trades sensationalism for the grinding, ordinary cruelty of a system built to make waiting unbearable.

What is Aisha about?

Letitia Wright plays Aisha, whose dignity survives a process designed to strip it away. Josh O’Connor plays a social worker who befriends her, and the film — developed with input from real asylum seekers and advocacy groups — never lets the bureaucracy overwhelm the person at its center; every indignity registers through Wright’s face and posture rather than melodrama.

Should you watch Aisha?

If you want a patient, humane drama over a dramatic one, yes. The 23-point gap between Celluloid Editorial Rating and Audience Snapshot is real: general audiences expecting a tragedy-or-triumph arc may find the film’s restraint too quiet, while critics have consistently praised exactly that restraint as the film’s integrity.

How does Aisha compare to I, Daniel Blake?

It shares Ken Loach’s interest in how bureaucracy inflicts violence through paperwork rather than force, but Berry’s camera stays closer and quieter. Where Loach builds toward righteous anger, Aisha builds toward exhaustion — a different, more unsettling kind of protest.