Straw by Tyler Perry is a psychological drama that cut across aspects of life that leaves you thinking long after you've watched it. The storyline was about a struggling single mother who has been pushed to her breaking points by different challenging happenings around her life. The role was played by Taraji Henson and I must say she did an excellent job with her role as Janiyah, how she embrace the role of someone's who's life was falling apart is mind-blowing, especially when I see how she struggles to cart for her daughter's needs, while having a financial challenges, setback and the reality of our society that usually seems unwilling to listen.
The compounding issues led to her gradually losing control, to the point where the day that began just like every other one, turns out to become a nightmare via the series of event that happened during the course of the day. To be honest all of these make me begin to wonder how much suffering one can take or endure before they lose their grip and control. One thing I admire about the movie is Taraji Henson performance, like I stated earlier, she did an amazing job with her performance, the way she was able to enter into the character of a desperate mother, one who's going through different things, ranging from frustration, to pain, fear and several other things just to survive. The way embodied those emotions make her struggle feels real, for we the audience to pity and as well feel her pain, other outstanding performance amongst the cast are Teyana Taylor and Sherri Shepherd.
One of the most important message Straw present is regarding issues surrounding mental health, poverty, compassion and most of all the dangers of judging people too quickly without trying to understand their situations. Talking from the context of what happened with her Janiyah at the bank, we can clearly see that it's not like everyone wants a special treatment, some people just need someone who listens, show them genuinely kindness before things will go out of hand.
The plot twists of the movie though might be quite difficult for some viewers to comprehend, take for instance I did watch the movie with some people and after watching till the end, I'm surprised to find out most of them don't know that Janiyah daughters had actually died the previous day and all what she was doing on the day the movie shows us was just her going through mental health issues and unable to cone to term with the fact that her daughter is dead and that's why when she called her mom, she was surprised with the conversation, same is the case when she went to drop her daughter in the school in the morning, it was all her imagination, yes, she did went to the school, but her daughter wasn't with her, and that's why the teacher at the school entrance was looking at her strangely.
Overall, I'll concluded by saying I had a good watch of the movie straw, it's a thought-provoking movie that's at the same time emotionally intense, and got viewers on the edge of their seat throughout the watch. Overall the movie reminds us that everyone has a limit and a breaking points and so the need to not just judge people based on their appearance, but to go on to treat people around us with compassion.
Rating: 80/100
