Tyler Perry, an African American film producer based in the bustling U.S city of Atlanta, Georgia, has been a topic of both celebration and controversy. Tyler Perry is a real-life example of the adage “making lemonade out of lemons”. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Tyler grew up poor, and according to his biography, he struggled as a young adult, sometimes sleeping in his car. Tyler Perry, therefore, is no stranger to poverty and the black struggle in America, and he has dedicated his talents to portraying the struggles of the poor and the black people of America in both plays and films. When the public first heard of Tyler Perry, it was because of his traveling plays across America’s stages, where his alter ego, Madea, gave hilarious life lessons. Tyler Perry, at the beginning of his career, was celebrated as one of the best playwrights in the black community.
Tyler Perry quickly went from playwright to film producer, translating his plays into sitcoms and movies. As he gained notoriety through the Black Entertainment Television channel, he began to make powerful friends like Oprah Winfrey. He must be a quick study because soon he became a powerful film producer, making waves in mainstream TV and incorporating well-known white and black actors. Soon, Tyler Perry was known as the producer who provided more opportunities for black actors. In the last ten years, Tyler Perry has been a film-producing machine, shooting out film after film and sometimes overwhelming us with simultaneous productions. While a sitcom was playing on BET, there would be a movie coming out and a soap opera playing on another channel. It seems as though Tyler Perry has become like the Coca-Cola company of the film industry, inundating his audience with so many different flavors of film at the same time. As a result, Perry has been met with both praise and criticism. While some addicted fans praise every film that he produces, sober fans criticize his production speed and the watered-down messages portrayed in some of his shows. Some fans have been worried about how black people are being portrayed in some of his productions. None of this seems to slow Perry down, however, and most of us cannot imagine the film industry without Perry in it. When Straw was advertised, it was met with the same mixed expectations. Some expected it to be yet another overacted play that portrayed black people as loud and boisterous victims of society, and others expected it to be yet another successful Tyler Perry production.
Let’s get into my unbiased thoughts after watching the film. I say unbiased because, like some, I have had a yoyo-like relationship with Tyler Perry. I started out loving all his work, but as time passed, I became exhausted with the amount of work Tyler was producing, especially when some of it was not as well-acted or well-written. I became a critic of his work, making it a point to watch everything he produced, and I wrote reviews on Google, admittedly with the hope that he would see them and improve those aspects that some of his fans complained about. In the process, I have loved some of his work, hated some, and learned that none of us are perfect. This has made me an unbiased critic of his work. This is, therefore, a review that has nothing personal to do with Tyler Perry himself, but a review of the work as it stands on its own. A note to those reading this before watching the film: there will be some spoilers. I would recommend watching Straw before reading past this point.
Straw opens up to Janiyah Wiltkinson, a single black mother, in bed with her daughter Aria. We can tell that it’s morning as we are walked through their morning routine. This is important, as later Janiyah will be accused of bringing her child to school while dirty. But does the accusation happen? More on that later. As she leaves her apartment, her landlady is confrontational because she has not paid her rent. She threatens to evict her by the end of the day. We get the idea that Janiyah is very poor. Yet she still manages to give a homeless man some money, alluding to her kind personality. At her daughter’s school, the teacher gives her a strange look. This is the first thing that catches our attention, but we won’t know till the end of the movie why the teacher gave her this look. At work, her boss is a complete asshole. He is the representation of every bad boss out there. He lacks empathy and humanity. As the audience, we can’t help but remember at least one bad boss we’ve had. Here, I begin to feel Tyler Perry pulling at my heartstrings as he does in every film he has made. Perry finds that thing that moves you, makes you furious, makes you feel… that thing that you’ve experienced that made you cry. He knows how to make a film about you. This is how he has managed to become a household name for so many black people. He makes you feel like he relates to you. As her boss yelled at her, I felt exactly what she was feeling. I wanted her to yell back, but I understood that she couldn’t. She needed her job. We all need our jobs, and some bosses take advantage of that. With this film, Tyler Perry explained exactly why people snap. After watching the trailer, we all knew that she was going to snap, but now we could see why.
Although the film portrays a single black woman and the hardships she experiences in life, there are many layers of meaning behind it. The film underlies the American people, capitalism, greed, and the loss of humanity. A third layer of the film is a political statement. Perry finds a way to give all people a voice. Those making so little money that they are living from paycheck to paycheck, barely escaping eviction every month, those working a job they hate and under a boss who lacks respect and empathy, and those single parents struggling to make ends meet in a society that demands more regardless of their financial situation. We are then introduced to the health problems that Aria, her daughter, struggles with. So, not only does this single mother have the normal struggles that most of us face, but her daughter is also sick, and the medicine is expensive. Here we are forced to think about the healthcare system, and how difficult it is for poor people to get proper medical care or afford medicine. At this point, I am thinking about John Q, the movie where Denzel Washington holds a hospital hostage because they won’t treat his son. For a moment, I was worried that Tyler Perry was going for the same theme and that he would not hold a candle to John Q. But, as the film progresses, we see that Janiya’s actions are not premeditated. This is what gives the film its unique path separate from John Q. This woman has no idea what to do as her world falls apart. Things seem to unfold at a dizzying pace, and as they do, she subconsciously ceases the moment hoping that she can get her paycheck, get it cashed, and go back to providing lunch for her daughter, who is waiting in school. Or is she?
While at work, Janiyah receives a phone call about her daughter, and she needs to rush to school to see her. Her boss gives her 30 minutes to run to her daughter’s school, but as she goes, she realizes that she needs to stop at the bank to try and get some money to buy her daughter’s lunch. It’s payday, but her boss won’t give her the paycheck she earned. She has $47 in her bank account, but at the bank, she cannot withdraw that money because it is below the required minimum to keep the account open. She asks to close the account, but the queue is so long that she cannot wait. At her daughter’s school, she is informed that child services is taking her daughter. She begins her journey back to work, but her journey is interrupted when she absent-mindedly pulls out onto the street too soon, and a man almost wrecks because of her. He curses her, throws coffee at her, and vows to follow her and make her life hell. Just as you think that things couldn’t get any worse, the guy rams her car, runs her off the road, and then shows up with a lady cop. He announces that he, too, is a cop, a moment that lends the film a dramatic flair. He flexes his power by promising to find a lawful way to blow her head off. She is terrified, but the lady cop makes him go back to his car and let her handle things. Let’s stop and analyze this.
This part of the movie, where a police officer threatens Janiyah, may seem extremely fictional, but it speaks to the powerlessness that most black people feel when it comes to authority. When you know that what your boss is doing is wrong, or that some police may be profiling you, or that the cards are stacked against you, it can be difficult to stand up for yourself. There is a general fear of retaliation and a feeling of being outnumbered. It’s even worse for women. A man can be large and foreboding, and when you add the badge, the situation can seem impossible. Tyler Perry did a great job of theatrically describing such a predicament. A small black woman is threatened by a large white man who also happens to be a police officer. There is no winning here. We can see how the powerlessness and desperation mount. This is not just about white and black. The landlady is a black woman, and the boss is a black man. Perry is careful to highlight the fact that whites are not always the antagonists. Humans in general can be mean toward each other when money and social status are involved. Humans will always find a way to hate, and it is not always about color. Her boss has a business to run, and he finds that to get productivity out of his employees, he has to be intimidating. The landlady has bills too, and to protect her livelihood, her tenants have to pay their rent. The pharmaceutical companies want their money as well. The plight of the regular person under capitalism is subtly explored here. The film encourages us to ponder the various perspectives of humans based on their life status. As an adult viewer who understands economics, it was difficult for me to hate the mean landlady and the boss. I hated their cruel treatment of Janiyah, but I also wondered if, as a landlady, I would have allowed her to continue not paying her rent, or if, as her boss, I would have allowed her to continue being absent from work. This is a film that tugs many strings.
The policeman, however, is inexcusable. I could not like him, nor find any excuses for him. There was no reason for him to behave the way he did, and I hope that there aren’t such cops out there, but this part of the story brought the drama into the film. Janiyah was still determined to go back to work, speaking to the desperation that allows us to show up to our shitty jobs over and over again. The whole debacle had taken two hours, and her boss was not having it. He fired her. This became the movie climax. After everything that had gone wrong, she lost her source of income. But the worst part was that he still would not give her her last paycheck. This is enough to make anyone snap. We then see her finding out that she has been evicted, and then back at her boss’s office, where she is begging for her paycheck, he insists that he will mail the check to her. A couple of guys rush in to rob her boss, at which point she is assaulted and winds up grabbing one of the robbers’ guns and shooting him. The other guy escapes the scene. This part was strange, considering that she was flailing the gun around and the other guy could have easily shot her, but he runs, and her boss continues to taunt her. This is a bad idea considering that she has the gun. This part was executed horribly, and I found it annoying. Janiyah waits until he calls the police and says her name as an accomplice, and she then shoots him. Wouldn’t it have been better to shoot him before he had successfully dialed the police? Perry probably wrote it this way to facilitate the police knowing her identity when the bank manager speaks to the 911 operator. I guess my version would have made for a different movie where she might get away with the murder. Perry is not interested in his main character getting away, however, rather in telling her story, and that’s fine.
Surprisingly, after she shoots her boss, she is not interested in the stacks of money sitting on his desk. She only wants her check, and that is all she grabs. She rushes over to the bank to cash her check and barely gets in as it is closing time. She does not have her ID, and so they cannot cash her check. She still has the perp’s gun, and she throws it on the counter and insists that her check be cashed. I must stop here to say that at this point, I felt like I was watching two movies. Her shooting her boss was exciting enough, but now she is holding a bank hostage? Her dialogue with the police, where she describes her plight, is a tear-jerker. She is not robbing the bank, she insists, and this is true because she only wants her check cashed. She is irritated when the tellers try to give her all the money. She only wants the $522 that is owed to her. Even as she realizes that she is going to prison for all this, she still does not want to rob the bank. She wants to pay her rent and get her daughter some lunch.
Just as you think that you have lost faith in humanity after encountering her landlady, her boss, and the bad cop, two women emerge as the heroes of the movie. These two women, one a detective and the other the bank manager, believe her and rally behind her. The detective bonds with her on the phone and can relate to her because her mother was a poor, single black woman. The other, the bank manager, is just a good person who is moved when she hears Janiyah’s story. The scene where she tells the detective everything that she has experienced brought some tears to my eyes. It’s like having a bad day where all your fears come true. That feeling of helplessness turned around when she realized that she had a gun in her hand. People respect guns. They may not respect your gender, color, or position, but they respect guns. She realized this and ceased the moment. Does this mean that it was the right thing to do? No, but it was the only thing she felt that she could do. This film made me question my judgement. I never advocate for violence, but would I have reacted the same way in her position? It made me question all those times we hear about an employee snapping or someone turning vigilante. Violence is never the answer, but with this film, Perry forces us to see things from the perspective of the one who snaps. As an unbiased critic of Perry and his work, I must declare that this was executed very well. Perry succeeded in getting me to put myself in Janiyah’s shoes and understand the psychology of that person who feels like they have been backed into a corner, and that a gun may give them the power to get what they need. Of course, this never ends well, and Perry admits to that at the end of the film, but he manages to explain to us why people do what they do even when they are aware that the consequences will be bad.
The detective lady manages to get Janiyah to agree to come out if the bad cop can be taken into custody. This is self-preservation. She just wanted the money she is owed so that she could take care of her daughter, but she also does not want to come out unless the bad cop is taken away, because he promised to kill her the next time he saw her. At the end of the movie, the bad cop has been identified and removed from the scene, reminding us that the law always gets those who abuse it as well. The manager at the bank has bonded with her and to save her life she decides to stay with her to the end and walk out with her. This speaks to society’s mistrust of law enforcement. They are both afraid that the police will shoot her on sight when she walks out. After all, she is a criminal in their eyes, because most of the time, nobody cares about the why, but only about the crime.
Huge spoiler alert. If you haven’t watched the movie and plan to, and have read this far, please stop because I am about to give away the gem. Okay, here it goes. Right before Janiyah is about to keep her end of the deal and walk out, she gets a phone call from her mother and finds out what shocks us all. The daughter that she has been fighting for all day, to the point of possibly being locked up, is dead. What a turn! As we hold our breath and take the shocker in with Janiyah, we now remember why the teacher gave her a strange look, and why the bank manager was so moved to help her. The bank manager admits to having known at some point. We get flashbacks where her daughter is erased from scenes we had seen before. She waves at her daughter at school, which is why the teacher gives her a strange look. The daughter does not exist today. Aria had a seizure the night before, and Janiyah and her mother took her to the hospital, where she died. It seems that Janiyah must have been so affected by the tragedy that she dissociated, continuing with her life as though her daughter were still alive. As we watch Janiyah react to the news, we wonder what her next move will be. She already knows that she is going to prison, so is she going to shoot herself as a desperate attempt to end her life and be with her daughter? The SWAT team storms in and, without question, shoots her. As the bank manager cries and the SWAT team stands over her body, Tyler Perry messes with our emotions again. The bank manager calls her name, and she snaps out of it. Together, they walk out and take instructions from the police. In the end, Tyler gives us all the options available. He allows us to decide what we would do in that situation. For some of us, losing a child would cause us to lose hope, and therefore, allow the SWAT team to take us out. For others, surrendering would be the better option.
In conclusion, Tyler Perry uses this film as an opportunity to provide a window into the psyche of a troubled woman who becomes a criminal. He allows us to see the humanity in her, and to relate to her problems and her decisions. He creates a psychological conundrum that echoes after the film is over. What would I have done in the same situation? It becomes impossible to judge this woman who, by the end of the film, has committed murder and bank robbery. The film also, dare I say, gives white people an opportunity to see the humanity in poor black Americans. It helps to gain an understanding of the different perspectives in society. The single black police woman is quick to understand Jamiyah because they have some things in common, but the male detective sees a cold-blooded murderer. When the predominantly white FBI agents take over the scene, they couldn’t care less about this black woman. All they see is a criminal who has endangered people’s lives and who needs to be stopped by all means necessary. It would be unfair to accuse anyone of racism (other than the asshole cop who rammed Janiyah off the road) because the hostages that the FBI was trying to save were black as well. Are any of these perspectives wrong? Not in my opinion. Extemes of any of these perspectives could have caused some problems. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, Tyler Perry speaks to the misunderstandings that cause strife in society. The cases where someone, ‘just doing their job’, can be confused for racism, and the moments where subconscious racism occurs. There are many subtle subliminal messages in this film, and it can be easy to miss them. I conclude that Perry was well-meaning when he wrote this story and was striving to convey a message that would resonate with people of all races. Tyler has done a good job of humanizing all of us and reminding us to look at the why before we judge a person.
As for the cinematography and acting quality, the scenery matches the lifestyle depictions of the characters, and the choice of actors is fitting for the roles. Taraji P. Henson has always wowed audiences, but it’s been a while since we have seen her in such a dramatically demanding role. She aced it. She manages to take the viewer out of the “I am watching a movie” mindset, pulling you into the drama. She has a talent for expressing emotion so well that the audience can feel it. Tyler made a great call when he gave Taraji this role, and I dare say that she deserves an award for her work on this film. I admit that it pains me to give this Tyler Perry movie five stars after I have been such a harsh critic of his latest works. But I did promise an unbiased review of this work.
