How much can a person handle before he or she pinches? That investigates Straw (2025)the new film by director Tyler Perry. He also made in a deal with Netflix And jazzman’s blues (2022) in The Six Triple Eight (2024). For this film he can lean on the talent of Taraji P. Henson, who convinces in her role of radical mother.
Bad day
Janiyah Wiltkinson (Henson), is a single mother with her sick daughter Aria (Gabby Jackson), who suffers from epilepsy. She lives in a disadvantaged neighborhood and has two jobs to make ends meet. She is the goodness itself but a series of events that take place one day make her mind crack.
The only thing she wants is her salary by collecting a check at the bank across the supermarket where she works. Or rather worked because she has just been fired. Armed with a gun and a ‘bomb’ she walks into the couch. The fact that a whole police force is outside in no time makes the whole situation even grim.
Intense and raw acting
Henson plays her role so convincingly and raw that you go completely in her state of mind. Nicole (Sherri Shepherd), the bank manager, tries to keep the peace while Kay Raymond (Teyana Taylor), a police officer outside, tries to estimate what preceded it. The more it becomes clear, the more citizens are on the hand of the desperate mother. Here too the media play a major role. While everyone tries to keep the peace and hopes for a peaceful outcome, there is the FBI that focuses on things and seems to thwart everything that is so carefully built for it.
Intense, compelling but not always subtle
Straw Is an intense film, the intensity of Henson in her role is so felt that you can only go along with the harrowing story. The film is also socially critical because the contemporary issues of racism in the United States are in it, as well as masculinity and police arrogance. The Black Lives Matter-Materie not shunned. But what is perhaps worse is the lack of empathy for the people at the bottom of society, which shows the film. That day after day against bureaucracy, get stuck in a jumble of rules and a rigid attitude of their fellow human beings. The feeling that you are not heard or seen by anyone. Let alone helped.
You could say that the film is not always subtle in its intentions, but it is effective. If only to show how much a person can handle before it cracks. And this is not only happening in America. Due to the inventive scenario of Perry and his tight direction, nobody will leave this film untouched. Soon there are associations with Dog Day Afternoon (1975) With all pacino or slightly more recent, John Q (2002) With Denzel Washington. This film can be put away effortlessly in that list. An impressive film that had earned a cinema release.
Beeld: Still ‘Straw’ via Chip Bergmann/Perry Well Films 2/Courtesy Netflix
