Seahorse: On Connections and Feeling Seen

by Irene Milea

Sometimes the past is too hard to let go and it keeps coming back for us. At the same time, SXSW 2026 Narrative Feature competitor Seahorse poses a question: Is the past holding us back or are we the ones incapable of letting go and moving forward? 

Nola—played by Aisha Evelyna, writer and director of the movie—is a sous-chef at her best friend Adelaide’s (Ruth Goodwin) new restaurant. From the start, it’s clear that she’s living through a tough time. Her apartment is chaotic and her landlord doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that there is often no hot water in her tenant’s home. Nola’s situation is also aggravated by her working conditions as she’s not paid enough for her work and the chef, Adelaide’s fiancé, is insufferable and hostile towards her. After a rocky morning at work, she casually meets her father Cyrus (Joseph Marcell) wandering around outside the restaurant and learns he’s living as a homeless man. This event triggers the start of Nola’s journey of accepting that she was abandoned by her father after her mother’s death. She wants to take care of him now, even if she knows it might not be the smartest thing to do.

Aisha Evelyna does a remarkable job portraying Nola’s mental state and depression, both as an actress and as a director. Her expressions are honest, raw, and impactful. By choosing to mainly use a shoulder-mounted camera and a handheld camera, Evelyna allows us to follow Nola’s perspective by standing beside her. The frenetic and unsteady movement are a perfect metaphor of how Nola feels. 

The beautiful cinematography and color palette also make the film feel poetic. The tints of green and yellow when Nola remembers arguing with her father while her mother’s ashes fell into the sea match her clothes, making the memory feel like a part of her. Similarly, the colors are soft while she swims and forgives her father to let go of her trauma. Water as life can be docile and unrelentless, but it washes everything away, providing the choice to start again. 

In the same way, the decision to completely fill the film with music other than ambient sounds or background noises feels heavy, conveying Nola’s difficulties when the music is syncopated and distressing.

The film shows in a simple but effective way that it’s hard to exist in a world that makes living harder: the doctor who doesn’t care about his patients at all treating Nola’s father, friends that help in all the wrong ways, and having hellish work. It’s beautiful how Evelyna chooses to add layers to Nola’s character like when cooking pasta for her father, we sense that she enjoys cooking enough to carefully add basil to the dish. 

What works are details and metaphors like the tomato sprout Nola planted—everything looks perfect from afar but looking closer, you see it’s rotten. Giving up is never the easy choice. In fact, it takes courage to even consider it. Showing Nola confronting and seeing her younger self is a moving touch, but what the film lacks is more developed supporting characters, especially Nola’s father. Knowing something more about his story and his motivation would have more impact.

In one of his attempts to reconnect with her, Nola’s father puts the final nail in the coffin when he states that living together again isn’t going to work because: “Look at me, look at where I live . . . look how you live . . .” The dialogue emphasizes the difference between “where” and “how,” the problem is not so much where you live but how you live. This detail gives the story a particularly heavy and meaningful weight that sits with the audience even after the film ends.

Still, there is lingering hope and life, like the tiny tomatoes that are starting to grow in the small garden patch outside her apartment. Nola is reminded that being born is miraculous and that there’s only a one in 400 trillion chance of being born, which means life fights for a chance to be lived so we have to embrace that chance. 

This story strikes a universal chord by exploring themes of healing and letting go. Like Nola, we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves and others with films like Seahorse. It’s one that will leave you with the hope that one day everything will be okay.