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‘Tyler Perry’s Straw’ Review: Taraji P. Henson Plays a Woman Well Past the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
'Tyler Perry’s Straw' is a typically melodramatic yet potent depiction of systemic miseries that lead to a hard-luck heroine’s police standoff.
Yet what breaks the camel’s back for this put-upon heroine is an accumulated rage that feels particularly tuned to our political moment, when to many Americans it seems societal institutions have ceased to even pretend they serve any citizens below a narrow economic elite. In a brief span since waking, just about every bad thing possible has happened to her: She’s suffered sundry petty abuses, been the victim of a road-rage accident, had her car impounded, lost a desperately-needed supermarket job, seen asthmatic daughter Aria (Gabby Jackson) taken away by Child Services and been evicted from their dingy apartment for tardy rent. Nonetheless, “Straw” succeeds overall because we don’t necessarily need to find Janiyah’s near-ridiculous predicament fully credible; it can be accepted as an exaggerated encapsulation of the pressure cooker people like her inhabit every single day.
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