Straw~Was it really worth the hype?

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How are you planning your weekend? That’s if you aren’t in the weekend already. Well, speaking of weekend—last weekend, I watched the all-so-popular movie showing this period and guess what? I was disappointed.

I’m talking about the movie Straw. I’ve known Tyler Perry to actually deliver good movies and all, but this was surely below my expectations.

Yea, I know-I’m gonna have people on my neck for saying this, but what’s a movie review if I’m gonna lie about it?

I don’t even know where to start, but maybe I’ll just give the movie’s plot—and that’s for those who haven’t seen it yet. And if you’re among this category of people, then I’m really gonna say you deserve a handshake for not being moved by all the hype.

PLOT SUMMARY

So Janiyah Wiltkinson is seen to be a single mother with a sick daughter named Aria. They are struggling to feed and survive daily.

Her landlady threatens to evict her if she doesn’t pay up her rent. She promises to pay, believing she would be getting her paycheck that day.

She drives Aria to school after helping a disabled man with some money, even though she barely has enough to survive.

She gets to work and is faced with an angry boss who is pissed that she’s late. She apologizes while trying to serve customers at the supermarket where she works.

Then she gets a call from the school, saying she needs to pay some money for her child’s lunch. She begs her boss for a little time to attend to it; he gets angry but gives her 30 minutes.

She goes to the bank to withdraw the little money she has, but she’s denied because withdrawing it would close the account.

Not long after, her child is taken away from her due to her inability to properly care for her.

In frustration, she goes back to work but gets fired for being later than the 30 minutes she was given.

She begs and finally asks for her paycheck, but is denied due to the supermarket’s employee policy on fired staff.

While trying to get her cheque from her boss, armed robbers storm the office. Shockingly, she fights with them and overpowers them. She shoots down the robber.

When her boss tries to call 911 to accuse her of a setup, she shoots him too, picks up her cheque, and walks out; leaving the bundles of money behind.

She heads to the bank to cash her cheque, but when things spiral, she ends up holding up the bank and taking hostages.

Eventually, it’s confirmed that Janiyah had been hallucinating due to grief, and that her daughter Aria had actually died the previous night from a seizure.

Janiyah finally surrenders peacefully, with the help of a nice negotiator and the bank manager.

MOVIE REVIEW

All I can say is: the movie was overrated.

First of all, I’m gonna refer y’all to a movie called Fractured, then maybe you’ll agree with me that Straw was just a “copy and paste” movie.

I know, yeah, people go through some severe kind of trauma like inordinate hallucinations, when it comes to grief, but don’t tell me you had to carry almost the same idea from another movie and merge it with a cliché storyline of “a struggling single mother” just to make something “relatable.”

Not gonna lie, the only part that felt real and genuine to me was the moment at the bank where she was conversing with the negotiator. That was where we could actually see the struggles poor people go through daily and how they’re treated with so much disdain and resentment.

That moment got me. That was the emotional point for me, because that was where a pure story was portrayed. But aside from that, everything else felt overrated, overhyped, and fake; since it was basically copied.

I’m gonna give this movie a 5 out of 10 and that’s only because it was somewhat below expectations.

All Images are screenshots from my phone