Tyler Perry has a habit of snatching your peace like a purse thief in a dark alley. His movies aren’t content with gentle tears—they wring you out like a grief-soaked rag. Straw, his latest emotional siege, doesn’t just tell a story; it writhes, wails, and leaves you gasping. I staggered away from the screen like someone who had just survived a storm without an umbrella—or dignity.
I sobbed like a Greek chorus trapped in a broken elevator. Some optimists masquerading as critics had the gall to call it a “hopeful ending.” Hopeful for whom? The undertaker?
The film’s marrow is Janiyah’s story. A quiet, blistering essay on exhaustion, sacrifice, and society’s talent for cruelty. Her life unfolds like a hymn for the invisible. Single motherhood here isn’t romanticised—it’s shown in its full, brutal glory: diapered despair, judgmental stares, and the unbearable weight of doing it all while being told you’re not doing enough. Janiyah keeps patching her soul until there’s nothing left to sew.
Then there’s her boss…a terrible human. Janiyah gives this job her back, her time, and her pride. And in return? A pink slip and a soulless smile. It may be fiction, but many of us know what it feels like to be a cog tossed from the machine the moment it squeaks. You try to be excellent. You become expendable instead.
And Officer Oliver—dear God. If patriarchy had a police badge and unresolved trauma, it’d be him. The man is a composite sketch of global injustice, where authority meets ego and swallows integrity whole. The day Janiyah’s life collapsed wasn’t caused by bad luck—it was kicked apart by a man who weaponised power like a hobby.
Yet, in the rubble, glints of mercy. Nicole, the bank manager, and Detective Raymond offered rare oases of kindness. Women who see, feel, and stand. There’s a magic when women decide to show up for one another—no claws, no cattiness, just deep, soul-nourishing solidarity. It hit like warm soup on a cold betrayal.
Beneath the surface of Straw, there’s a quiet but unsettling pattern: nearly every man is either a villain, emotionally vacant, or disastrously useless—each one adding weight to Janiyah’s already crushing burden.
If it wasn’t the cold, indifferent store manager, it was the aggressive customer who shattered a bottle in her path. Then came the police officer who rammed into her car, the FBI agent who couldn’t be bothered to extend an ounce of empathy, and the man at the bank who physically attacked her. Even the security guard—arguably positioned to help—chose flight over action.
But then came the punch that truly felled me: Aria’s death. That child was the one strand of light Janiyah clung to. I’d fantasised a glossy alternate ending where Aria becomes a lawyer, quotes Audre Lorde, and builds her mum a mansion. But reality is rarely that generous. Life has a foul temper. And sometimes, good people bleed without ever getting bandaged.
The ending? Less resolution, more limbo. It didn’t wrap up. It unraveled. I didn’t feel closure—I felt cracked. I wanted more for Janiyah. Still do. But grief doesn’t always ask for permission or plot closure. It just arrives, messy and unsolvable.
So I made my own ending. In my head, the crowd at the bank grew a spine. Someone live-streamed the moment. Hashtags formed. A movement began. Maybe she got justice. Maybe mercy. Maybe… something.
Straw is not entertainment—it’s confrontation. It’s society without its makeup. A reminder that everyone’s carrying something, and sometimes, what they’re carrying is a slow, silent scream.
There’s a chance you’d walk away from this film a little more deliberate. A little less quick to judge. A little more willing to ask, “What’s your story?”
A great movie, not because it uplifted me. But because it unmade me. And in that unmaking, I found something painfully honest. Every actor held their own, but Taraji? She transcended. The woman doesn’t just act—she possesses.
