Written and directed by leading actress Aisha Evelyna, Nola, a sous chef, is seeking stability after a stay in a mental health facility. After a hectic dinner shift, she crashes her bike—and wakes to find her estranged, unhoused father, standing over her. As she takes him in, old wounds resurface, and her world unravels. Caught between past and present, love and loss, Nola must navigate grief, forgiveness, and the fragile hope of healing. Also starring: Ruth Goodwin, Joseph Marcell, Alden Adair and Brett Donahue.
One of the great elements of Seahorse is clearly communicated right from the start, and that’s how much lack of understanding, empathy and compassion, or even just patience, people can have when it comes to mental health issues. Aisha Evelyna immediately fills the atmosphere with anxiety and stress, it has a perfect tension to match the mental state of Nola (Evelyna). The way she also uses a very naturally styled movement to her direction keeps that emotionally charged, sensitive air going all throughout the film.
The tone is incredibly gentle, there’s a lot of pain, trauma and frustrations involved but they never become loud nor overwhelming, while clearly translating how overwhelming they are for the character. It’s an element which is very well complemented by the cinematography from Ian Carleton, it’s evocative, nostalgic and has a compelling grain to it. There are also some excellent choices with the score, that don’t simply follow a traditional path, they add a bit more personality and specificity to the character’s background.
Aisha Evelyna gives a fantastic leading performance, she’s easy to relate to, the struggle feels very real and she also simply has a likeable personality, which makes her effortless to follow. Evelyna gives Nola such a well rounded persona, we may not get every detail of her background, but we don’t need it. She gives viewers more than enough to understand this character and does it with subtlety and tenderness. That’s really where Seahorse is at its strongest on the whole, as when Evelyna steps outside of that and explores the emotions in a more physical or metaphorical sense, it doesn’t work as well. Those hallucinatory-esque additions can knock the tone off-balance and move the film away from its grounded style.
Seahorse is an excellent debut feature, not every choice may land as strongly as others, but the talent, consideration and vision are certainly there. On top of Aisha Evelyna’s moving lead performance, she’s well supported by Joseph Marcell who is basically a staple of indie cinema at this point. As well as having Ruth Goodwin, Alden Adair and Brett Donahue all tap into the different emotions of the story and layers to Nola. Donahue’s character in particular highlighting the lack of empathy today, particularly in influencer culture, towards poverty and homelessness. It’s shot well, it’s thoughtful, it’s gentle, it’s highly relevant and another lovely reminder of how much having compassion and empathy for others matters, and can make a vital difference.
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