Tyler Perry's Straw has people split. Quietly brilliant, or they turned it off. Underneath that I kept hearing the same question from Black women: are we tired of this.
Not always tired of the movie. Tired of the loop. We get centered when we are suffering, surviving, holding it together while we fall apart. Straw is subtler than Perry's usual, and it still lives in that house: Black woman breaks down, keeps going.
The numbness is the true part. Mental health that does not look like a scene in the street. Performing fine. Static behind the eyes. I know that. The movie does not rescue you at the end. It just makes you sit there.
Some scenes drag. Dialogue gets thin. I still think the refusal to make trauma cute is the bravest thing it does.
I can want this story and want more than this. Healing. Laughing. Dreaming. Not only the edge. Watch it if you have patience. I am not putting it on a pedestal. I am not pretending the pattern isn't a pattern.
