I honestly didn't know what to expect when I started The Strays, but this movie got weird pretty quickly. Neve (Ashley Madekwe) seemed to have the perfect life. She had a nice house, a good job, a husband and two kids. Everything looked fine until Carl (Jorden Myrie) and Dione (Bukky Bakray) started appearing around her. And the way Neve reacted to them, you could immediately tell something wasn't right.
At first, i was wondering why she was so uncomfortable around these two young people. Then the truth started coming out, and that's when I really understood what was going on. Carl and Dione weren't strangers at all. They were Neve's children from her previous life—the life she had walked away from.
She had changed her name, changed her appearance and basically created a whole new identity for herself. What surprised me most was how badly she wanted to keep that old life buried. She had built this beautiful new life, but the past she thought she had escaped from finally caught up with her.
Sebastian (Samuel Small) and Mary (Maria Almeida), Neve's children, also got pulled into the whole mess, which made things even more uncomfortable.
I won't lie, some parts of the movie felt slow to me, and there were moments when I was just sitting there thinking where exactly the movie is going, but the story kept me curious because I wanted to know what Carl and Dione were really after.
And that ending.. Neve spent the whole movie trying to escape her past, and even when everything fell apart, she still chose to run. That was probably the most disturbing part for me.
The Strays wasn't perfect, but it was definitely the kind of movie that made me sit back and think about it after watching. It dealt with identity, family, abandonment and the lengths someone can go to hide their past.
I'd give it a 75/100.
It was slow at times, but the story was strange enough to keep me watching until the end.
Rating: 75/100
