Straw plus Short Takes on various other cinematic topics
It Was the Worst of Days
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, but better options are on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue below [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
However, before jumping into the review I must acknowledge the sad news today of the death of pop musician extraordinaire/former Beach Boy Brian Wilson, at 82, possibly from dementia. I saw him live twice, once co-headlining with Paul Simon, then on the Beach Boys’ 50th Anniversary Tour. As noted below, time’s short for me this week so I’ll just offer this version of his "Caroline, No" from a 2002 London concert without his previous bandmates, just as he recorded the single version in 1966, the only song released under just his name when he was still with his original group (song also on the 1966 Pet Sounds album), so it seems fitting this version’s with other musicians as well. It’s a heartache tune, reflective of the many heartaches Brian endured during his life, yet it also brings in the melodic beauty of his many triumphs as well. OK, now I'm back to the regular material.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
WHAT HAPPENS: Janiyah Wiltkinson (Taraji P. Henson) is an overburdened single Mom living in a dilapidated apartment with her often-ill daughter, Aria (Gabby Jackson), who’s just finished her science project due at school today. On their way out this fateful morning the landlord threatens Janiyah to have the rent money in by 10 am or they’ll be evicted. As Janiyah leaves the school she becomes aware Aria needs to pay $40 for lunch money, an embarrassing fact her teacher has announced to the kid’s class. When Janiyah gets to her grocery store checker job she faces more harassment, this time from her boss, Richard (Glenn Turman), angry she frequently arrives late. Her first customer that day gives her more grief by lashing out at Janiyah for refusing to apply food stamps to some non-eligible items, then throws a bottle at her. The boss shows her no sympathy, demands she clean up the mess, but while she’s in the back getting a mop she takes a call from the school that Child Protective Services is taking Aria because they’ve found bruises on her which Janiyah says came from mere slippage within their bathtub, yet the kid’s still being put into custody.
Janiyah pleads to take time off to go to the school, but she’s given only 30 minutes; first she runs to the bank across the street to get the $40, but the line’s too long so she drives away. When she’s at the school, her pleas are to no avail as Aria’s taken by the authorities. Driving back to work in the rain she accidently cuts off a guy (turns out to be an abusive off-duty cop) who runs her off the road. When on-duty cops arrive, they confiscate her expired license and registration, impound the car. Obviously, she misses her back-to-work deadline, so she’s fired with her final paycheck to be mailed later; to pile onto her misery, she walks home to find her belongings out on the curb, so she returns to the grocery to confront her ex-boss in his office where she can see her check in an envelope on his desk along with a lot of money. Suddenly, a couple of robbers show up for the cash, along with Aria’s backpack (contains the science project)—another accident that it’s in Janiyah’s possession. She refuses, struggles with the guy, gets control of his gun, accidently (a bad string of these on this day) shoots and kills him, as his accomplice runs off. Richard accuses her of being in on the robbery because the now-victim knew her name; however, that’s only because he'd seen it on her nametag.
Richard’s about to call the police with his accusations, causing Janiyah to frantically shoot him as well, then running away with just her paycheck, none of the other money. So, she’s back to the bank to cash her check but can’t do it because she has no I.D. Desperate, she pulls out the gun, demands her money, but this leads to the tripping of a silent alarm as the teller pushes over all the available cash, assuming a heist. Bank manager Nicole (Sherri Shepherd) recognizes Janiyah, tries to calm her down which isn’t easy because 2 police detectives, Kay Raymond (Teyana Taylor) and her partner, were already investigating the situation at the grocery store, now turning their attention to the “bank robbery.” Det. Raymond is a former Army negotiator so she has a phone conversation with Janiyah, building rapport as she’s also a single mother, understands the traumas. A bank teller uses her phone to live-stream Janiyah’s description of her horrible day’s events, building up public sympathy for her as demonstrators gather outside the bank in her support. By this time the FBI’s arrived, tries to push Det. Raymond out, but hesitates to invade, fearing the backpack contains a bomb. ⇒That’s cleared up, then Det. Raymond sends a photo of the cop who harassed Janiyah earlier through Nicole’s phone, gets confirmation about him, has him hauled off, as Janiyah release the few hostages in the bank, even as Nicole voluntarily stays in. At his point everything changes because Janiyah gets a phone call from her mother who forces her frantic daughter to recall Aria died last night during a seizure so all we’ve seen about the girl on this momentous day has been Janiyah’s hallucinations (although it looked real enough to us). In what seems to be the end, the FBI storms the bank, shoots Janiyah; yet, this is just another of her seemingly-real hallucinations, so the truth is Janiyah (along with Nicole) calmly walks out of the bank and surrenders to Det. Raymond.⇐
SO WHAT? If you don’t care about Spoilers, I’ll refer you to an extensive website which goes into considerably more detail about this film, including some commentary from Perry and Henson. Obviously, Janiyah stumbles into some constantly-compounding personal horror on likely the worst day she’ll ever endure, although we have no clue how the legal process will treat the various (misunderstood in some cases) crimes she’s committed, with her frantic murder of Richard being the one most difficult to explain away, even given the mental anguish regarding Aria. While you could make the argument that there are just too many calamities piled on here, this story becomes symbolic of how so many people struggling on the margins of personal and financial stability face variations of these traumas (hopefully not with gunfire as a response, but that happens all too frequently as well) in more individual circumstances rather than so many of these horrors accumulating within just a few hours. The goal is to show how 1 awful situation can produce other misfortunes, often leaving put-upon people with no opportunities to turn to financial advisors, beneficiaries, mental-health professionals, and others who those of us with more secure situations can assume we’ll be able to access if any aspect of these debilitating challenges might fall upon us.
Janiyah’s tragedy is an intentional exaggeration of how aspects of a decently-intended life (she hoped to become a nurse someday, but that became unlikely as time carried on for her, with little hope for opportunities to escape the confines her life thrust upon her, even before this overwhelming day occurred). As news stores have explored for us recently, the “big, beautiful bill” recently passed (by 1 vote) by the U.S. House of Representatives could easily provide such medical and nutritional crises for millions of Americans who won’t be benefitting from massive tax savings intended for the tiny upper-class segment of society who would find windfalls of even more wealth while huge numbers of struggling countrymen will likely find themselves in aspects of Janiyah’s compound tragedies, so maybe the depictions shown here might help inspire some viewers to implore their Senators to block or substantially alter this “ugly” legislation before it intensifies the already-difficult fate faced by huge numbers of actual Janiyahs. (Not that awareness of her miserable situation on this day led to any sort of dramatic resolution; we can only hope the system finds a level of leniency when her legal woes are processed. Or maybe she’ll continue to find public support, just as an actual bank robber, Sonny Wortrzik [Al Pacino], was able to do in Dog Day Afternoon [Sidney Lumet, 1975]—“Attica! Attica!” [look it up, kiddos!]—even though his ultimate fate was not what he’d hoped.)
BOTTOM LINE FINAL COMMENTS: I’ve been busier than usual (especially for a retired guy) this week, dealing with things involving blood pressure devices and extensive carpet cleaning (not that these 2 are in any way connected, I hope), so I’m a bit in the mode of rushing to the finish line to get this review written and posted. Therefore, while this film deserves more attention than I’m giving it, that in no way implies some level of disinterest on my part. Admittedly, the situations for Janiyah may come across as too loaded down with hopelessness for you to keep watching over the near-2-hour run time (which gets us to the title, as the piling-up events of her day lead Janiyah to her “last straw” as she just tries to get her money from the bank in a final, futile attempt to square things with her landlord and her daughter’s school), just as Ty Burr of The Washington Post has his reasons to dismiss much of it: “ ‘Straw’ has a bone-deep empathy for the struggles of those living below the poverty line or just keeping their chins above it. [… but] ’Straw’ plays fast and loose with that fear in a wholly unnecessary penultimate scene, but it’s already tripped over its own feet with a final-act twist that is simply one too many — one more piano falling on poor Janiyah’s head after the whole orchestra has come crashing down.” Didn’t work for you overall, eh?
Still, there are others who better appreciate Henson’s frantic unraveling (which fully impressed me), such as Entertainment Weekly’s Jordan Hoffman: “Straw is not exactly subtle, but the emotions are so raw and the performances are so earnest that you’ve really got to have a heart of stone not to care for these people. And haven’t we all lost our heads a little bit and done something a wee bit foolish? Sure, rushing into a bank with a loaded pistol may be a bit extreme, but it’s pretty hard not to relate. […] Henson’s performance is big and broad, and when she starts freaking out she really swings for the fences. [… There’s] a wild, enveloping conclusion that may be a bit far-fetched for some, but it's anything but grasping at straws.” Overall, the critics’ response is OCCU, the Rotten Tomatoes positives at 50%, the Metacritic average score at a surprisingly-higher 56% (former based on just 13 reviews, the latter on 7, so you might check back later). If you choose to see it, turn to streaming where it’s free to Netflix subscribers (or $7.99 monthly, cheapest option). My review-ending Musical Metaphor here is The Beatles’ “Misery” (1963 U.K. Parlophone album Please Please Me, 1964 U.S. Vee Jay album Introducing … The Beatles) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhbcN3ew9z0&list=RDqhbcN3ew9z0&start_radio=1 as Janiyah might sing about Aria: “The world is treating me bad, misery […] I’ve lost her now for sure / I won’t see her no more / It’s gonna be a drag, misery.” Overall, it's been a damn bad day in the life with minimal hope to make it better!
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Some options for your consideration: (1) IMDb's Five Things to Watch on the week of 6/9/2025 (includes Disney’s somewhat live-action remake of Snow White); (2) IMDb's June 2025 TV and streaming calendar; (3) IMDb's Summer Watch guide; (4) Current top viewings on Netflix.
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