Straw (2025) review

Dir. Tyler Perry

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

For all intents and purposes, Tyler Perry’s Straw would’ve been more accurate if it were titled “Stress.”

Despite being less than 100 minutes sans credits, this movie feels longer than the latest Mission Impossible, and that’s not a criticism. There is a lot of “movie” here. Many things happen, most of which liable to leave you sad, shocked, distressed, or some combination of the three. Even if you’re a Perry devotee like me, who is more liable to chuckle or roll my eyes at the overwrought drama in his movies, you’re not going to be doing much of that with this one.

A return to form for the filmmaker after a pivot towards historical dramas — the rock-solid A Jazzman’s Blues and The Six Triple Eight, a crowd-pleasing World War II feature — Perry has made his most riveting drama since Acrimony. The common-thread between that one and Straw is Taraji P. Henson, and it’s no coincidence the veteran 54-year-old actress anchors both projects that happen to be among Perry’s best films. Henson has a rare dynamic quality where she can play viciously vindictive and hopelessly helpless, both with great conviction.

Acrimony saw her as the personification of the old “woman scorned” trope. Straw finds her character, Janiyah Wiltkinson, in a much sadder, tragic place. Within the first 15 minutes of the film, we bear witness to the worst day of her life, in a life that’s probably rife with easy-to-choose runners-up. It begins when her daughter Aria (Gabrielle Jackson) tells her mother that she needs $40 to pay her school lunch debt, otherwise she’ll again be publicly shamed by her teacher. Then, Janiyah’s landlord threatens to evict her if she doesn’t show up with rent money before noon.

At her grocery store job, the day only gets more brutal. She gets into an altercation with a customer; her boss, Richard (Glynn Turman), is a ruthless asshole, who won’t give her a slight advance on her already-printed paycheck; she gets in a minor car-wreck thanks to an aggressive-driving off-duty police officer who vows to find a legal way to kill her; and then her vehicle is subsequently impounded. Capping it all off, when Janiyah returns to work, her and her boss get robbed at gunpoint. One robber tries to steal her backpack, which has her daughter’s seizure meds. Janiyah successfully grabs the gun and shoots one of them dead. Then she shoots her boss.

While brandishing the gun, Janiyah then picks up her bloody paycheck and heads to the bank across the street to cash it. The tellers take note of her weapon and trigger a silent alarm, which then prompts a Georgia state-wide police investigation and a full-blown police presence outside the bank as the hostage situation investigates. Janiyah is the least-willing bank robber in history. She just wants her check cashed, and is in such a fried state of exhaustion and mental fatigue, that she doesn’t realize exactly what she’s doing. In some ways, she’s like John Boyega’s military veteran character in the under-seen movie Breaking, in which he robs a bank for a paltry $892, the amount the Veterans Affairs Office owes him.

Like in Breaking, where the late Michael K. Williams played a hostage negotiator establishing rapport with Boyega, it’s Teyana Taylor as Detective Raymond who tries to talk Janiyah out of doing anything rash. Janiyah takes a liking to her in time, for Raymond understands her plight and grievances as a fellow Black woman who came from a working-poor home helmed by a single mother.

Perry’s latest is about a handful of more substantive themes than many of his previous dramas. For one, the sad fact of how expensive it is to be poor. Low-income folks’ paychecks often evaporate the day they get them due to unpaid expenses. They don’t qualify for loans. They can’t afford to purchase items in bulk. They accidentally overdraft one of their bank accounts, and are slapped with a fee. Straw also shows the sad fact of these circumstances plaguing low-income individuals, especially Black women, is nobody gives a damn until it’s too late and they’re the subject of a recent crime or, in this case, a hostage situation.

Many of Perry’s dramas typically find themselves limited, at least in part, due to the filmmaker’s propensity for minimal reshoots, unpolished framing, and scattershot acting. Straw feels very refined by comparison. There’s some terrific visual storytelling at play in the opening scenes, which show Janiyah’s messy apartment rife with dirty dishes, an eviction notice, and a lack of air conditioning. The shot compositions are mindful, and the large police ensemble and ensuing protest in support of Janiyah is very well-documented.

There’s also a swath of memorable supporting performances, most of all from Sherri Shepherd in a lovely, empathy-filled turn as the bank manager who tries to extend some words of encouragement to Janiyah before she does something she’ll regret. Taylor is strong in a role that demands she be a presence both as a disembodied voice and an on-camera presence. Lastly, Sinbad plays a homeless man who is quick to acknowledge that, no matter how tough times may be, Janiyah was always quick to give him some spare change and entertain him with brief conversation, showing her unwavering kindness.

And then, of course, there’s Taraji P. Henson, a gifted actress who throws herself and whatever built-up anguish, devastation, and heartbreak is inside her into a tour-de-force performance. By the time you’re gobsmacked by Perry’s twist — one of his most emotional and well-defined, I’ll add — your tear-ducts are liable to burst. Even in moments of incredulity and overwrought melodrama, Straw feels precariously close-to-home for far too many people in this country. I fear for its viability as entertainment for those who live a life dangerously close to Janiyah, but I do feel like these kinds of stories, like Shepherd’s character, offer empathy and visibility to the most marginalized individuals in society.

Starring: Taraji P. Henson, Sherri Shepherd, Teyana Taylor, Sinbad, Rockmond Dunbar, Ashley Versher, Mike Merrill, and Glynn Turman. Directed by: Tyler Perry.