(Credit: Netflix)

When Tyler Perry promised a pentagonal release this year on Netflix, the subscribers could barely hold their breath. He sure brought laughter on his coattails, but also tears with Straw, his latest Netflix film, released on June 6th, 2025. Taraji P Henson tells Tudum, “Straw is about a woman who reaches her tipping point.” But to be fair, is the conclusion that black and white in Straw? Or, are there some grey areas too?

Perry’s Straw is about a cascade of catastrophes, and right at the eye of the storm is Janiyah Wiltkinson. Janiyah is a single mother who lives in a rundown apartment with her ailing daughter Aria. Her day begins with an angered landlord threatening eviction over unpaid rent; at work, she is completely on the outs with her boss Richard while she struggles to withdraw money to pay Aria for lunch. But the last straw?

A phone call from Aria’s principal turns her day upside down as child protective services threaten to take her away over her back bruises. Though the marks are from a bathroom slip, Janiyah is still late to stop the authorities. But that’s just the beginning of her problems. Following the crushing call, a racist cop runs Janiyah off the road, ending with her license being confiscated. And at work, Richard terminates her for vanishing behind her child at school. Meanwhile, upon her return home, she finds her belongings out on the curb.

Janiyah then returns to Richard, pleading with him for her last paycheck, when unknowingly, she is caught amid a grocery store robbery. Though both were held at gunpoint, Janiyah somehow frees herself to shoot one of them. However, Richard accuses her of complicity in the theft, recounting how a robber called her by name, paying no heed to the fact that she wears a nametag. Richard’s time is cut short with a point-blank shot. And Janiyah’s desperate attempts to get her child back led her to the bank across the road.

But with no form of identification, she resorts to taking a bank hostage. From the start till this point, all Janiyah had done was for Aria. However, the biggest plot twist is Aria is no more.

So, what happens in Straw in the end?

Everything Janiyah does in Straw is for a purpose: Aria. Even during the tense standoff in the bank, she begged the manager, Nicole, to take care of Aria when she is behind bars. However, when her mother calls to inform her about Aria’s death last night from a seizure, the sense of purpose becomes a mere illusion. For Janiyah, it was all for nothing. When she struggles to grapple with the heartbreak, an FBI extraction team is sent to the bank.

Janiyah imagines herself pierced with bullets, like many viewers. However, Tyler Perry brings a moment of relief with an unexpected show of sisterhood. Nicole talks Janiyah off the ledge while Detective Raymond stands between the FBI and the single mother. “The movie represents three different types of Black women, who are all the same Black woman, who are all different walks of life, different stages of success, but can all empathise with each other,” Perry said.

In the end, Janiyah escapes a devastating destiny, though her sense of purpose vanishes into thin air. She must find a reason to live on since the daughter she lived for, is no longer around. Though Straw breaks expectations in more ways than one, it brings back the question: which reality are we all living for?