‘Straw’: A Tense, Exhausting Drama That Does Not Let Up

Straw, the new film from Tyler Perry, has quickly become one of Netflix’s biggest successes of the summer, opening to a viewership of 25.3 million views in the first three days of its release on Friday, June 6, 2025, and ranking as Netflix’s most watched film over its first week. It has continued to pull in more viewers following this, scoring the biggest audience seen by a film airing on the streaming giant over this year so far.

But whilst the film has pulled in large audience figures, the final product is overall a very mixed bag. As a tense, psychological thriller, which boasts some impressive performances and taps into many real-life issues, it’s easy to see why the film has captured viewers’ imaginations. However, as the storyline develops, it sometimes falls too much into cliché, as well as feeling a little by-the-numbers.

The film follows a day in the life of a single, working-mother, Janiyah, played by Taraji P. Henson, as she is pushed to her breaking point by circumstances outside of her control. As the film opens, it effectively conveys from the start the stress Janiyah is under, as it highlights the squalor of her flat, the harassment from her landlady, the rush to get her sick daughter, Aria, to school on time, and then the chaotic environment at her work, where Janiyah’s strict, no-nonsense manager, played by Glynn Turman, shows zero sympathy for her situation.

As her morning progresses, we see practically everything going wrong for Janiyah in about as extreme a way as possible. Having to bail on her work after getting a call from Aria’s school, Janiyah’s told her daughter will be taken out of her custody, before then hearing that she has been given the sack and having her things thrown out of her apartment.

After desperately trying to get her last check from her former employer, Janiyah finds herself in the midst of an attempted robbery. In the struggle, the robber is shot, and with the blame falling on her, Janiyah finally snaps. Faced with the threat of prison, Janiyah turns the robber’s gun on her boss, then proceeds to go to the bank in order to try and cash her check and get her daughter the money she needs for medicine. This culminates in Janiyah holding up the bank after the staff there raise the alarm, causing the police to turn up outside.

It’s a relentless sequence of events that feels almost comic for how extreme it gets, with one thing following another. Taraji P. Henson puts in an excellent performance in conveying the sense of desperation her character goes through, still managing to feel believable in spite of a one-note characterization. Viewers will likely have no problem believing that these events would make a person snap in the way that Janiyah does. However, the issue is more that the events themselves, coming one on top of each other, do stretch suspension of disbelief at times.

As much as it can feel over the top, the film is still trying to reflect on the experiences of real people and how problems can quickly pile up and spiral out of control. "When have you seen these types of characters before?" stated Perry, in an interview. "What film have you seen them in and realized their struggle? Because these images are so profound and powerful, I think that as people watch it, it’ll tell the story of real people. And I know that there are a lot of Janiyah’s out there in the world for real."

After we see Janiyah holding up the bank and taking some of its staff members and customers hostage, the film then takes a much more grounded, somewhat more traditional setup, as it depicts the tense standoff that develops with the police outside. Viewers watch as Detective Kay Raymond, played by Teyana Taylor, realizes they aren’t dealing with an outright criminal and tries to prevent the situation from derailing further, in defiance of uncaring higher-ups within the police and the FBI. Meanwhile, those inside the bank begin to bond as they talk with Janiyah and find themselves empathizing with her.

The film quite effectively sells the growing relationship between Janiyah, the bank manager, Sherri, played by Nicole Parker, and Detective Raymond. Nicole Taylor and Teyana Taylor are both particularly impressive here, as their characters increasingly come to recognize their common backgrounds with Janiyah, as mothers and as women of color. This is perhaps the strongest aspect of the film, with each of these women working desperately to save Janiyah from the situation that she finds herself in.

If there is one failing in the film, it is that many of the characters still feel a little cliched, like stock caricatures that we have seen elsewhere before. Teyana Taylor’s character, in particular, for as much as she puts into her performance, feels very much like a standard ‘good cop’ struggling against the system she is in, but never feeling all that realistic in how personally this hits her. The film effectively maintains the sympathy we have for Janiyah’s character, yet it does end up feeling increasingly overwrought as the hold-up situation drags out further.

This is perhaps most clearly demonstrated in the two twists that come towards the end of the film, where, twice in a row, the audience has the rug pulled from under their feet as the reality of certain scenes are challenged.

Firstly, viewers learn that Janiyah’s sick daughter, for whom she has done everything, had already passed away before the events of the film. The viewer is treated to a playback of all the scenes with Aria that had been shown previously, but instead, like in The Sixth Sense, it is revealed that she hadn’t ever been there at all.

Then, minutes after this, we see FBI troops burst in, gunning down Janiyah in what is momentarily a shocking sequence, before quickly being revealed to be a fake-out. Instead, Janiyah is convinced to come out willingly and is taken away without any further bloodshed.

Both these instances end up feeling incredibly melodramatic and at odds with the quieter, more character-driven moments that had come previously. This is perhaps the key issue with the film. Whilst it has an interesting and tense premise that speaks to many Americans’ everyday struggles and reflects on wider topics, such as the BLM movement, the writing rarely lends these themes as much depth or development as they could have had. As such, it never has the weight or the realism that it should. Much of the film risks verging into territory that feels over the top, scenes serving only to drive home a particular point.

Nevertheless, Straw is still a film with plenty of powerful moments throughout, and it’s easy to see why this is one that has hooked audiences. Whilst it may be inconsistent at times, it at least aims to go beyond the tropes of the usual police procedural and actually says something about working class people in America.