This poignant drama was clearly made on a dinky budget that probably stretched to barely more than crisps and squash on the catering tables. And yet thanks to subtle, considered performances, a finely milled script, inventive craftsmanship and a deep sense of empathy for the precarious lives of refugees, it packs a considerable wallop.
The story starts with reticent, clearly traumatised Nigerian Isio, played by Ronke Adekoluejo, who is subtle throughout in a role that could easily have been done with too broad a brush. Isio arrives at a women’s shelter for asylum seekers in the UK where she is assigned to share a room with Farah (a luminous Ann Akinjirin), who is already a few steps ahead of Isio in the legal process that permits applicants to appeal twice. (If the second appeal isn’t approved, applicants are immediately deported.) Although Isio is a bit standoffish at first, gentle Farah shows her roommate the ropes, warning her not to trust the guards, to watch out for the tough women dealing drugs in the yard, and to try not to lose hope.
Despite the fact that Isio sneers at Farah’s philosophy degree – nowhere near as useful as the one Isio has got in political science – the two soon become friends and eventually lovers. The love scenes, not explicit but touchingly sensual, are a counterweight to the story we eventually hear about why Isio is seeking asylum; being a lesbian is illegal in Nigeria, where her own mother arranged for her to be raped by men, thinking it might “cure” her child. It’s a bit of a shame we don’t know as much about Farah’s background, although presumably she left Africa for similar reasons.
Writer-director Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor’s script leans perhaps a little too hard on the show-don’t-tell theory of construction, but she and her team make evocative use of simple but effective flourishes, like fluttery editing that strobes between scenes or makes a person who has suddenly gone from the story into a flickering ghost. Elsewhere, the photography has a creamy, backlit quality. Maybe the voiced-over recitations of poems by Carol Ann Duffy feel a little culturally out of place, but they’re nevertheless emotionally vivid.
• Dreamers is in UK and Irish cinemas from 5 December.
