THE STRAYS Is An INFURIATING MESS! - ENDING EXPLAINED
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- čas přidán 22. 02. 2023
- Netflix's latest horror/thriller is an absolute disaster which might have one of the worst endings I've ever seen.
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#TheStrays #Netflix - Krátké a kreslené filmy
I really wanted to like this movie. I thought the visuals were fantastic. If only more time was spent on the story... and everything else.
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I find it funny this is what frustrated you but not the literal communist in last of us ep 6. And how Joel is a none character and how they literally ruined. Bill story with Frank. This this right here is your limits really.
@@wolfbane7497 The hell are you going on about?
G R A M M A R
Agreed it just made black people look bad, it’s not a Get out’ movie, very disappointing 👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽👎🏽
Maybe this movie was not made with you in mind?
I liked the movie. I thought it was an issue that needed to be addressed. As a biracial (black and korean) woman myself, this movie hurts my heart. When I was a teenager I wanted to hide my Asian side and embrace my black side more. It didn't really work so I hated myself for a while. I felt like I didn't fit in or have a place. I feel very ashamed of this now as a 34 year old woman today, but I connected with the tone of this movie. My mom, who is from South Africa, and my dad, who is from South Korea, took me back to their countries to show me how beautiful my cultures truly are. That summer trip was what I needed to be proud of who I am and where I come from. So this movie really hit home for me for sure.
What I hate the most about this movie is Ian being killed?! Why?!! He had nothing to do with what Cheryl did in her past. He knew nothing. Not even about the check she wrote to buy off her children. 🤷🏻♂️
The thing is when Ian knew about it, the guy don’t do shiet about his wife’s previous kids, he just accepts to rebuild within their own home and didn’t even reach out to the kids, he kinda shows that he did accepts them as his wife’s previous children but not as a part of the family which, sucks
@@grungefanfromyyc But why should he? They're not his biological kids and they clearly didn't want to be involved with him, they just wanted Sheryl, Sebastian and Mary as a "family". To them he's just a white guy and nothing else, if he reached out, which he probably wouldn't be able to anyway, he'd probably be ignored. Ian isn't responsible for them and doesn't have to be if he didn't want to, they're not his.
Immediately after finding out all this stuff about Cheryl, he wanted a divorce (abandonment) which is exactly the opposite for what the kids wanted so then he decided to put him on weights
@@OKCHIJT at least he’ll not forced to rip that bar out to death.
@@grungefanfromyyc It was an allegory .Bu transferimg the weight from older man to the old yt man.
The ending was supposed to make the audience feel abandoned with no explanation or conclusion. I loved, liked, then hated it. There were a lot of mixed emotions during this movie.
I agree because I did feel abandoned at the end of the movie when she just left. Also, the mixed emotions too.
You explained this perfectly.
SPOT ON...
I literally was like
🤷🏾♂️🤔
Don't leave me mommy lol😂
Fr😂
I liked that the writer wanted its viewer to make their own conclusion
I felt bad for Sebastian and Mary there dad gets murdered mum leaves and they stuck with the killers not to mention they were innocent and got harassed by the kids at the beginning. And actually wanted to get to know Carl and Dion. I hope they could’ve at least been safe by the end but they were just cut it.
The dad seemed to fetishize his wife. Screw him.
I’m so happy you mentioned stereotypes as it was so prominent in this film. When Carl and Dione held the family hostage, I was disgusted. The film drives home all the negative stereotypes about blacks. The juxtaposition of the music, the style of dress, and the way aggressive behavior on both their parts. What in the entire hell was the purpose of killing the dad? It was all so stupid and not well thought out.
Sheryl (Neve) also grew up in the same part of London, yet she wasn’t vicious, aggressive, or ignorant, which makes me feel like the film is also perpetuating colorism. Nothing that happens in this film unpacks issues instead they compound them.
Well said!! This movie was awful to me. So sad!
Some of the casting choices seem unrealistic. The leading actress "Neve" appears to be a bi-racial woman; therefore I find it highly unlikely that she would have given birth to two fully-black children (even if the father was African). Also, I highly doubt Neve would have any issue blending into predominately white spaces as lighter-skinned minorities are often viewed and treated differently. They should have cast someone who presents as "Black" to make the plot more believable.
Couldn't have put it better myself
Exactly. Sorry I wasted my time.
Totally agree with you!
The”wanting to be white” thing is actually realistic in the sense that there was a story of someone’s grandma who managed to hide the fact that she was biracial until her grandchildren took a genealogy test.
Imitational Of Life is a better movie about passing?
Makes a change from all the kids thinking they are black lol
Ali G coined it well......and that was decades ago...
Yes, but passing was a common thing back in the day and it was due to black people being legally systematically oppressed. This main character actually wasn’t passing because her family was aware she was black, she just erased any essence she had as a black woman.
Alot of people did it to have a better way of life due to white supremacy
It’s the selling your soul to the devil part I have trouble with. Who leaves their children behind for 18 years to do anything for themselves. Especially knowingly under poor conditions. It’s not a likely scenario. Maybe a sociopath or a drug addict, but a narcissist? Also, the narcissist would never have an attack of conscious.
Cheryl’s children that she abandoned had every right to be upset, but by targeting Cheryl’s new family, it can make the audience feel less emphatic towards them or at least it did for me. The ending was bold, but I don’t really know how else it could have ended. Mixed emotions about the film, but goodness you could feel the tension the entire time.
It was off the chain
The tension for me was when I realised 20mins before the ending that I've wasted a significant amount of my life watching this utter garbage.
I too sympathised with Carl and Dione at first but then they decided to murder Ian, basically taking the life of Mary's and Sebastian's father who had no clue of Cheryl's past.
Carl and Dione just made me angry with their psychotic behaviours that I completely forgot about their poverty-stricken childhood.
@@crystalmint1202 I honestly have no doubt their intentions were to murder them all, or, at the very least, torture the crap out of them.
@@cmk9495they were going to murder them all for sure. He had a machete. Cheryl did not even check to see if her husband was still alive. She was plotting to get out for herself. They turned into psychopaths.
I think the 1st set of children felt she abandoned them because they were black and thought she hated her blackness but the end of the movie actually showed how much more complexed the character of cheryl/neve was. Between the debt, being black, an abusive relationship and then having to raise 2 children because of your abuser in her mind she was leaving behind everything that made her stuck. And by the end of the movie I think the first set of children came to realize oh she doesn't love them more because they're half white as she left them too. She chose herself and she will continue to do so no matter what
I’m honestly unsure if that story was even true, she was clearly still keeping some things from her new family even after that and she’s been lying and running all this time.
Also at the beginning of the movie her main concern was money and “having more” not getting out of an abusive or unsafe situation
@Alexis Mayfield at the beginning, the man on the phone sounded bad and there was a scene where Cheryl was starring at the black belt
@@alexismayfield522 It’s probably not true but it’s done by a few minority women when they get with black men. On My Block alluded to this with Monte mother. She ran away because Monte was too dark for her.
Yeah but I don’t think Cheryl is very reliable as a source tbh, not only is she mentally falling apart she will say and do anything to benefit herself. So lying is definitely a possibility with how she gaslights the family into viewing her as a victim
I didn’t expect her to leave her younger kids at the end. 😩
Well she’s selfish, she did it once so what make you think she was t going to doit again
@@eduardocod8924well I thought she would treat them differently because they were white passing and she wants to be as close to whiteness as possible
@@destinyn63 she show her true colors she only care about herself no one else
@@destinyn63 her children were not white passing in the slightest, why do you think her son felt like an outsider? white passing means that you could pass as a fully white person. her kids look very mixed lol
She said f them them kids 🤦🏾♀️
The movie, Passing, handles this topic way better. Especially, since Passing takes place in the 1920s, where white-passing was more about survival than greed.
Rebecca Hall, the director found out her great grandfather, was passing as native American, around that time. Some black folks passed off as white, latino, so they could play baseball back then, native American, I remember one story of a woman who passing as asian.
The film isn't just about "passing" and the fact that its set in current times tells us that this these themes and topics are still prevalent today
Passing is a fantastic movie.
With so much white privilege that still exists in every country today, I think a lot of Black people feel like their lives would be easier if they could pass for white. Top of the list: Not being targeted/killed by police, when I’ve seen videos of white people totally disrespect them to their face & walk away unharmed. 😧
And let’s not even talk about job opportunities. I have a freakin masters and know a white dude with no degree that’s in a higher position than me. He was hired in tech when his previous job was bagging groceries. I had to work a long history of professional jobs before my 1st opportunity for an interview at this company. Make it make sense. 😤
uh The movie passing was horrible
That ending was hilarious. So abrupt and so perfect for an imperfect movie.
Something else I didn’t understand was Carl first seeming uninterested in the basketball games to later cheering, seemingly showing a fondness for Sebastian only to later torture him. He also did look to take it personally when he saw the white kid bully him but turned around and abused him in far worse and more traumatic ways.
Mixed feelings. He simultaneously loves the idea of having a brother and is jealous of his brothers' status and privilege. Same for Dionne.
@@Blaisebullion I think for tv show that has 9-10 episodes that are an hour long you have time to develop complex characters like that. In a 2-3 hour movie you don’t have that luxury and the audience is left guessing.
I just wish they didn’t show Carl appear to have a growing fondness for Sebastian. I like my personal theory that all three of Cheryl, Carl, and Dionne has severe mental illness from being abused by their husband/father respectively. Carl even stated that Dionne had spent time in an institution. This is also the only way I can justify Carl abusing people who were taking his side against Cheryl. Even killing the man that demanded a divorce once he found out more of her treachery.
This movie has a lot of thought provoking ideas on mental illness, black-on-black racism, and society as a whole that I feel will go missed by a majority of the audience because of the lack of direction throughout the plot.
@@aviatinggamer9051 this should have been a series
@@aviatinggamer9051He k*lled the dad because of what he represented - his whiteness earned him the love of a mother whose love he couldn't earn by virtue of being her literal son (tragic). This is actually not all that uncommon. The dominance of Eurocentrism is often enough to make non-whites devalue themselves as well as their family, peers, or community (colorism). It's not always a conscious decision.
The anti-Black Black person loathes both their position in society as well the ills of the communities from which they come but instead of pointing the finger at the systems, policies, and institutions that created those conditions, they place the blame solely on the people living within them who mostly inherited their problems honestly. (This way of thinking is generally harbored by their white contemporaries and co-opted by POC looking to assimilate for safety, security, etc)
These types only look at the most undesirable qualities of "the hood" and unfairly and preemptively associate that with all Black people - trying desperately to separate themselves from what they perceive as a curse of sorts.
I think your theory may have some merit a trauma is at the root of so many mental illnesses. In this case, the trauma comes not only from the abusive father, but the decades of disenfranchisement, abuse, and being made to feel lesser than by societies around the world - this is often referred to as "generational trauma" and lots of POC/DOS have it.
Colorism is not a phenomenon I'd expect most people to understand, but it is a VERY common and very heavy theme POC deal with all the time. In that respect, I appreciated this film speaking on a subject to so many people struggle with but is very rarely spoken on publicly.
Please understand that I'm not trying to minimize anyone else's suffering by explaining my own. I don't expect MOST white folks to understand colorism but surely there are some who understand generational trauma. No need to be defensive. If you genuinely want to understand, it's okay to listen.
I like the ending. I think it's the most logical sense for the character to do that, especially since she did it before. At first, I thought her kids from the ex-lover are the strays because they mentioned that they've moved around a lot, but actually it's her who is a stray. She moved (escape) from her family every time she faces a problem.
Mary ordered the Uber eats with Carls phone. He tossed it to her after the Chinese place didn’t answer. But she could’ve texted the authorities right? Lol
The movie was so twistie she wasnt thinking to call the police on her siblings she bonded w knowing that they had already been abandoned by their mom. But I originally thought the same thing like I hope she is dialing 911😂
Moral of this movie: Uber Eats in their world is 100x faster than ours.
I tried to watch this movie and just couldn't. People act like because they were victimized they have a right to be terrible people, they don't. Being a victim doesn't give you an excuse to victimize others.
Chile it’s a movie not the real life
@@yokusfrequently9362 Chile is a country in South America.
@@matt_r.2510 and also slang for the word child
@@matt_r.2510 i know. I live there. Chile is also a meme.
The movie doesn't show that they're excused tho. What it shows is how coward, opportunistic, narcissist their mom is
that i want a divorce had me 🤣
Carl mentions that their dad abandoned them too, but he's only out here hunting for Neve. Terrorize both deadbeats equally.
Yer but people blame moms way more. Both parents suck.
This made me cackle. I totally agree. Their behavior was too overly dramatic for me.
@@b.abouttowwn would have made more sense if they punished her by moving into the neighborhood or something like that. violence was not necessary for the story
I mean maybe they did take care of the father lol
Exactly...just shows you how much society coddles deadbeat/non existent fathers. Men never have to take responsibility for their children.
I remember guys "daddy loves you very much"
Bruh I miss it so much
Carl seemed to be really in to Sebastian's basketball game, and I felt the brotherly love between them. I was sad to see him and Dione go psycho.
Also, was that bully killed with the basketball??
Neve never looks old enough to have those kids, especially her son.
Carl aged quite poorly. I thought he was 35.
@@paulpot2880 well if you got abandoned and on your own you’ll thrive to live a life, which mean a life with full of stress so does it affects them mentally and physically.
100% he could’ve been her husband. They could’ve aged Neve a little or made her look older or used a different actress and portrayed an early teen mom in the old pictures to help us believe the VERY small age gap is f Carl and Neve
Some of the casting choices seem unrealistic. The leading actress "Neve" appears to be a bi-racial woman; therefore I find it highly unlikely that she would have given birth to two fully-black children (even if the father was African). Also, I highly doubt Neve would have any issue blending into predominately white spaces as lighter-skinned minorities are often viewed and treated differently. They should have cast someone who presents as "Black" to make the plot more believable.
I initially thought they were her younger siblings, that maybe she was responsible for.
I completely agree with everything you said, however I did like the ending. Cheryl never showed any signs of growth or change - I don’t think it could’ve ended another way tbh, she will always be selfish and hurt everyone around her
Great… now the other set of half siblings will combine forces with the other kids to hunt her down once more in a sequel 🙃
dear God I hope not
They are different. Sebastian n Mary didn't go through what Marvin n abi did.
@@simpleboy7401 This idea is why I disliked the movie.
Nah man, Mary and Sebastian definitely won't team up with their father's murderers 🙂
@Kat T FR like Mary and Sebas would definitely NOT be working with a bunch of psychos who just murdered their father in cold blood :|
I think the hardest part of what really broke the childrens' hearts is that the mom wanted to get rid of them by telling them to go back to where they came from with two separate cheques.
As much as how the children wanted the luxury lives they have missed out, it's more of the nurturing and loving mother they were hoping to find. But it turned up more disappointing and therefore the revenge took place.
I think the father died innocently. But also a trauma projection of the father figure that the children never had.
Ending just pulled all the children together, I believe.
A shocking realization that it's not the children at fault, it's the life that the mother has created and abandoned as soon as it longer fits the way she has planned it.
Actually all the characters in this movie are victims of hers.
Of how she wants to live her life and how she's seen by others is far more important than the people in it.
I think you nailed everything I was thinking
I didn't see it as her trying to pay the kids off. To me it seemed that in her mind, they found her, she apologized/explained, and then assumed they'd go back home. The money I think was just her way of offering them something, like here you go, take this for your troubles. I can't give you love or affection but I can give you some money.
@Kat T then tell us what exactly he did wrong?
@@zukini8763 lol no. She was clearly giving them money so they can go back to where they came from
Agree!
Wow. After hearing this review, I realized this movie was meant for a specific audience. The part about ordering uber eats over the house phone is completely wrong, the son clearly threw his cell phone to Mary so she could use it.
This movie hints at all the major themes of colorism, poverty, and all the biases we experince in this world (hint when she says "men do it all the time" and much more). The whole movie is one big irony.
He obviously didn’t pay close attention to the movie, I caught the ordering food from a landline and was like dude he clearly gave her his cell phone 😂
Exactly. I understood the entire plot and subtext without it needing to be spelled out for me. But then again, we are used to having to understand dominant culture. The opposite is mostly only true for them when it's fun, popular, or convenient. But God forbid they feel like they weren't the target audience for something.
And also him saying he doesn’t understand how her wanting better opportunities that are shown in the movie to be out of reach for her because of her race are the reason she tries to erase her blackness!! Of course that’s a believable reason! Not only did mixed people pass as white for the same reason during the 20th century when racism was legally imposed, but people still try to assimilate to white culture in corporate or other white dominated spaces because otherwise they are materially penalized for it by either being looked over for opportunities or literally punished for harshly for things white people get slaps on the wrists for. Like, yes cheryll is a bad person but her reasoning for trying to erase her blackness makes perfect sense, but only people who know what it feels like to be outside the picket fence can actually relate to that or empathize with it ig
@@Blaisebullion exactly my thoughts
Carl was a psychopath like his mother! She passed down those traits to him. The sister , Dione, does have some type of personality disorder, because she carried a stuffed animal, like she was 5. Therefore, something happened that stunted her growth, perhaps her mother leaving?
Ian didn’t deserve any of that. Carl was evil and ruthless when he took his life. Everyone in that house was a victim of Cheryl/Neve. And everyone paid for her sins, which wasn’t fair. Carl and Dione spiraled after their mom tried to pay them to leave.
Moral of the story: your actions have consequences and affect everyone around you. She may run, but her kids will catch up to her.
I think it was a very good movie
Thank you! I liked the movie too! Its further than race lol. Not sure why people cant see the full view of everything 🤦🏾♀️🤷🏾♀️
A Netflix movie is this generation’s Straight to DVD.
Sometimes. However, Netflix can be hit or miss. For every shitty movie they make they make something really good.
is DVD an acronym for trash bin?
Yes and no. I get what your saying, but there have actually been pretty goods movie straight to Netflix and with popular actor's
It's not confusing. This film covers the themes of Poverty and Discrimination. Cheryl lived in Poverty and experienced discrimination. Her desperation to escape being poor, lead her to pursue a life of privelledge by being apart of a predominantly white, and wealthy neighborhood. She abandoned her kids because they were black and she didn't want that to get in the way of her having a better life.
The kids are messed up psychological from the trauma of being abandoned. They come into her life to seek revenge because they were left to suffer in a poverty stricken black community, whilst she thrived with a new "whiter" family, living in wealth.
All they wanted was a better life for themselves too, so they were jealous of the other 2 children. That's why they punished the entire family for their mother's mistakes. In the end, she abandons ALL her children, because she values a good life over her children. When things become unpleasant in her life, she can't handle it so she runs away instead of cleaning up her mess. The ending is basically a loop, the story ends and starts again at the same time. She will go somewhere new and start another life, just like she did in the beginning.
I completely agree I loved it tbh, I’m not sure why anyone’s pretending Cheryl was meant to be liked in any capacity, she’s manipulative, rehearsed and fake. When her children find her they want to reunite and get revenge.
Dione becomes incredibly desperate for a relationship with her mother and sister but she’s immature, she can’t handle her want for love and her jealousy at once, Carl however is bitter and probably a reflection of the abusive pos his dad was, he would’ve became the responsible figure in diones life and would’ve lost that childlike hope that she has. I didn’t love that Carl and Dione became antagonists but I think more focus has to be put on that Cheryl caused this she couldn’t handle her life so she abandoned her children, you are supposed to hate Cheryl there are so many scenes that hint at her manipulative nature and more that blatantly show this. So at the ending you are both begging for Dione and Carl to stop and for them to hurt Cheryl more, because she’s horrible. But her children’s overwhelming jealousy ends up killing an innocent man and letting the only deserving person run free.
It’s sad and poetic, the cycle repeats over and over
Also Ik the punctuation is a nightmare but I’m tired so…
Thank you for clarifying for the simple minded.
Understood
@@raquelteca5379 that was not directed at you but to man who made the original video. I apologize if I insulted you.
I feel too that Chery being severely abused by her first children's father put her in a fight or flight trauma response where she took pills to forget her past/pretend she was someone else.
It's annoying that no one sympathises with her despite her terrible actions as this narrative could be argued to have begun as a result of a domestic abuse controlling situation. Her ex controlled her every move and she took a small window of opportunity not necessarily to spite her children.
It's a lose - lose situation and looks like her son looks like her ex so she was paranoid. It didn't help that they painted the children in a negative abusive light too and I felt her mixed children didn't act well/sincere to the situation. Her children didn't keep this anger for their abusive father but will take it all out on their mother who doesn't recognise them and thought she was being stalked.
All in all sad, weird story that could have been good if more was explained. It was rushed and the storyline was overshadowed by cheap suspense.
As a black person… I completely agree with the horrible stereotypes being upheld .. and was frankly cringy .. being black is not smoking weed and solely rap music .. also, I agree… the father was not guilty of anything.. so why???
I think you over analyzed this movie. The ending was perfect. It left us with tons of unanswered questions… it confused and abandoned us…. Just like Cheryl confused and abandoned all of her children and left them with tons of answered questions.
It was decent watch. I don’t think the new hubby had to die. Those kids were very extreme and just awful. At one point, I thought she was gonna write a note to the delivery guy to get help. But she up and left. She didn’t even try to save her kids. So did she buy into the dream of a perfect family w a man and then it not working out decided to just leave and start over. Like is there an emotional attachment to her kids that she has. Apparently not, bc she didn’t try to save anyone but herself. The ending was so abrupt too.
Waaay too abrupt!! Like i was pissed. I could of came up with 3 different endings smh
Some of the casting choices seem unrealistic. The leading actress "Neve" appears to be a bi-racial woman; therefore I find it highly unlikely that she would have given birth to two fully-black children (even if the father was African). Also, I highly doubt Neve would have any issue blending into predominately white spaces as lighter-skinned minorities are often viewed and treated differently. They should have cast someone who presents as "Black" to make the plot more believable.
I thought the ending was to make the viewers feel like the kids did. She abruptly left with no warning
@@verneshabritt3262 haha very very good point of view!! I can see that, cuz i was pissed and so were they 🤣
Did anyone else notice why the fire alarm went off? I also seen her 2nd son run from the restroom. As she walked in I wondered why she would go in unless she smelled smoke. Then this took me back to when he was smoking in the woods with his brother. Being that his brother introduced him to smoking and worked there it all made sense.
You’re supposed to think it’s in her head at first. When they reveal it was all real later on at the gala, they conveniently never go back to that scene because it’s a huge plot hole.
There are some many instances of bad directing in this movie and this is just one of many.
they had a really interesting and nuanced story that couldve been told, but they messed it up completely. I don't know what message they were trying to get across
Some of the casting choices seem unrealistic. The leading actress "Neve" appears to be a bi-racial woman; therefore I find it highly unlikely that she would have given birth to two fully-black children (even if the father was African). Also, I highly doubt Neve would have any issue blending into predominately white spaces as lighter-skinned minorities are often viewed and treated differently. They should have cast someone who presents as "Black" to make the plot more believable.
exactly.
I expected the ending. It was obvious when she wanted her purse Ave had that jacket in her hand 🤣 🤣 That ending took me out.
I hollered soooo loud 😂
Fuck dem kids. Straight savage. Credits came up and I was like oh no she didn't
I really went “She left again!!”
Whoever made this movie is just another Jordan Peele wannabe as far as I'm concerned. Completely missed the mark! Such a good story concept, but articulated awfully.
Well said! & Jordan would of had a bomb ending lol this ending was awful
How many peele wanna best are there? We got speilbergneanna best Cameron Scorsese wannabes. There is room for this
Man, I'm just watching this makes me want to go buy some "cigarettes" at the corner and never come back 😕
Actually the ending (in my opinion) is pretty accurate considering everything she did to pursue shallow personal interests. She's the perfect example of a "me, myself and I" narcissistic person. The only person she has ever trully cared about is herself. I mean, what can you expect from a woman that left her first children behind in first place?! Now, the 2 left behind kids could have done way more better in life, they really took it too far and the guy for some reason placed all his hatred towards her husband who happened to be the only "full" white person and also a victim of the whole situation. I wonder if he killed him just because he was "white". Like if it was his fault everything that happened.
yea they should make a youtube video about it next time that doesn't take an hour and forty minutes
@@prang9960 oh please. This was a good movie. And if they come out with another one, you will watch.
Yes. They show it wasn’t really about racism, it was about greed, narcissism, and the feeling of your past following you. She wanted to be white to be more successful, and will continue to escape
The phone was Carl's. He tossed it to Mary after she used the landline to call the 1st chinese food place. You missed that part.
Yes it was frustrating never getting an explanation to what their plan was. It was clearly a well devised and thought out plan, we just never got to find out wtf it was !
Also he tossed the daughter his cell phone to order the Uber eats.
Netflix categorized the movie as “social issues/drama” but it really seems more like just a psychological thriller to me . Overall it was cool. Suspenseful, visuals and camera shots/angles were dope
I agree
The story line was building then the whole story line just collapsed at the end. She left because her cover was blown. She wanted a better life…not a harder life. After her Black son killed her husband, she decided to move on. Start a new life without any ties; or perhaps she went to get the police. Who knows? The ending is baffling.
they ordered UberEats with CARL's phone. It doesn't matter that their phones were destroyed. Remember, he keeps insisting to pay and even tell's Mary to grab his phone. You are mistaken at 4:43ish.
Carl and Dione are perfect examples of becoming a product of your environment when you have no patents teaching you right from wrong along with the trauma of being abandoned by their mom. Them doing all those things at the end actually was right on brand. Many criminals come from broken homes and have endured abuse and poverty. The dad can be heard yelling at Cheryl asking where she was so that may have been true and he more than likely abused the kids.
This was a gross representation of black children, I'm sorry. I know many black kids from broken homes, they don't behave like that.
How can you say that when the movie doesn’t show their upbringing AT ALL?
We don't even know much about Carl's and Dione's childhood, they just told their stories by mouth. But their childhood trauma doesn't excuse their psychotic behaviours. They're no better than murderers and criminals holding innocent people hostage. They didn't have to kill Ian nor ruin Mary's and Sebastian's lives. The 3 of them had no clue of Cheryl's past.
@@crystalmint1202 i can understand why they were mean to their siblings, jealousy&envy. One minute they’re nice to them then the next total jerks. Now killing the dad, i don’t understand why that was in the movie
Why does her black son look 40 years old?
Bile and a lack of sunscreen will do that to you.
Fr he literally looks so much older than her. 💀🤣
I think they were so focused on making him look intimidating, like big and scary that they didn't pay attention to casting an age appropriate actor 😂
He naturally has an old man look
I understood this movies ending well. She hated traumatic experiences. She rather run than gave it head on. I noticed with her second family the boy was older than his sister. I'm quite sure this was a constant reminder of her pass. It seems every time she thought of her black children her hair would itch.
The best stories leave u wanting more. Suspense. This was executed well. It's like someone calling you on the fone and saying you never guess what. Then getting cut off
The ending was perfect. Carl and Dione went to the town with the intention of forcing Cheryl to recon with her past and give her the opportunity to reconcile with them. Ian is put to the weights only after he states he wants to divorce Cheryl (another abandonment). Cheryl leaves at the end because she refuses to face not only her past but her self. The themes of colorism, passing, anti-blackness, and self hatred are very well expressed throughout the film, both subtle and overt.
Really? I agree with everything you said except the ending being perfect. It was way too abrupt
I actually liked the ending as well. Mainly because it kind of makes you feel what being abandoned feels like from their prospective. She up and left and that's it, that's the end. Now you see why the characters were angry
Agreed
Ian wanting divorce is obvious if you had a brain, you practically lied the entire marriage.
honestly if i were those kids parents i would also run away, they are horrible people.
The movie is very good.
Ian’s death was actually reasonable. While he was seemingly emphatic towards the two, and disgusted by his wife’s behavior, Ian was dead the minute he uttered the word, “divorce”. Divorce,especially in the eyes of children, signals not only a dying/ending relationship, but dying love and deconstruction of family dynamic as they know it. It was a way out and deemed too close to abandonment. A key theme of the film. There is a high probability that,had he lived, he would’ve been left standing there with the children 💀
I agree with all your comments about this movie beng confusing and convoluted. It was almost as though the writers themselves didn't know how to end it. It was a jumbled bizarre mess with no likeable charcters. The acting in some points was way too over the top and bizarre to me, too. Especially with the main character and the two black children . Anfd her constant head scracthing seemd like such an affectation to make her seem unhinged. The moment when the husband announced "I want a divorce" was totally random and fell on deaf ears. And Neve;s slow moving behavior and speech while they were "kidnapped" in their own house bugged the crap out of me. Were we meant to think she wanted to be killed? Why was the husband willing to go into the weight room, knowing he was going to be tortured and possibly killed? And why did no one help him? Everyone was in this unrealistic frozen mode. She had amble opportunity to tell the delivery guy she needed help, or write him a note asking him to call the poice immediatly or just run! The whole thing was not only boring and ridiculous it made no sense and the ending felt weak and cheap, The whole thing with the bath water flooding was ridicluous. The whole thing smacked of trying to hard to be eerie and odd and it failed to impress me at alll. To be honest, it was as if they were trying too ohard to be like "Get Out" .....thank God it was relatively short.
My cousins were abandoned by their mother and my uncle was still abusive with them and that didn't make them into crazy mf'ing criminals or seek vengeance towards their mother. I'm not saying everyone should be like my cousins but the movie was quite cringe in general. Like this video says, we're left without any answers or reasons to why this is all happening. You won't see anything like this anywhere in the world to be honest, but yeah I get it, it's a movie, just a very dumb one.
We're only humans afterall, I didn't consider Cheryl a terrible person, she even has that sweet touch on her, should've she reached out for her kids? Yes. But whoever knows people who abandoned their children knows that they're usually cowards and won't face their issues nor past. My roommate was a 60 year old dude who abandoned both his kids and he's ashamed of it every single day. They live with it everyday no matter how much they try to hide.
Again, we're humans, lying and making minor or even HUGE mistakes doesn't mean your life or your loved ones needs to be destroyed. It's like if I caught my girlfriend cheating on me I should kill her because of emotional damage she caused. The movie should instead inspire people to move on and succeed on their own.
Neve’s family was innocent. Not stuffy racist, genuinely good people and the older kids knew this. The revenge against them didn’t make sense. Trying way too hard to be a Jordan Peel film. The family spending the last 20 minutes of the film and their mom is vomit. Was really disturbing me. I was also distracted by how the daughter seem to have the Chinese restaurants phone number memorized?? Gen Z does NOT memorize numbers outside of 911
Carl gave her the menu he was waving around, or it's implied that's where she got it from ? 🤷🏽♀️
I recently watched this movie and i was literally screaming at my own tv by the end of it.
Cheryl is an awful person for what she did, she abandoned her children(both of them), lied and tried to forget about her past.
It was disgusting when she gave money to them and basically told them to get out of her life, when the whole point they were there was to see her, it was flat out sad. And the fact she tries to seem like she was just 'trying to help' shows that she serious thought what she did was ok.
I felt like they were implying she was mentally unwell and delusional during the part when she sees the tv turn on and it shows her children and her hair starts to grab her, she doesnt need help, shes beyond that stage
Just finished watching the strays a few minutes ago. My thought right before the movie ended was : wait a minute, she’s just going to leave? 😮😮 and then lol 😂 As the credit started rolling. This film really took advantage of me. Even so, I’m up for a sequel.
Passing is a modern day movie that addresses this subject so much better and to me the penultimate Imitation of Life if you’re willing to dig in the older archives.
Is this really considered "passing"? I mean she wasn't suggesting she was white but she was only "acting white". Her son makes a comment at the dinner table saying "we are black too" so I think she was pretending to be more posh than the average black person. It's kinda like she was saying "yea I'm black but I'm fair skinned so I'm better than the dark skinned blacks." So this movie seems more about colorism than passing.
Some of the casting choices seem unrealistic. The leading actress "Neve" appears to be a bi-racial woman; therefore I find it highly unlikely that she would have given birth to two fully-black children (even if the father was African). Also, I highly doubt Neve would have any issue blending into predominately white spaces as lighter-skinned minorities are often viewed and treated differently. They should have cast someone who presents as "Black" to make the plot more believable.
The problem starts here, the mannerisms , behaviour the director gives the black children character is so stereotypical vs the coloured children ,
Abigail and Marvin as uneducated and unable to make anything productive out of themselves , rude and violent as per usual . Abigail was depicted slow for her age , and Marvin was shown as a bad influence to Sebastian influencing him to smoke cigarettes and drugs and violently attack a schoolmate , and towards the end the only way they could get closure from being abandoned by their mother was to commit more crime (house invasion and murdering her white husband )
this representation is tired and a damaging stereotype ,
Mary and Sebastian were portrayed to be more soft spoken well mannered and relatively smart for their age (a representation that reinforces the white preference for coloured individuals) .
Neve/Cheryl herself was depicted more as a black woman wanting to live beyond her means and would do anything for it (gold digger stereotype) than a woman of color struggling with racial identity and internalised racism which was what the movie intended to portray , so again the failure of which was more harmful than insightful .
Speaking of insight , the movie like the tittle strays from the main themes and fails to help viewers understand the social inequalities and injustice for people of color /black people that contribute to self hate , internalised racism which was a reoccurring theme in the movie
Not just a flop from social dynamic issues but a gross insult to the community
🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️You are talking right! What an awful movie and depiction of blacks.
Throw the whole movie 🎥 away 🗑️
All I could think was, no smoke for the abusive father who traumatized them all and was the Catalyst for their entire family and lives being destroyed, while also not wanting to be a father and take care of them after she left though?
I thought the ending was kinda funny, aww shit, she did it again.
If ever there was a moment to bring back "Daddy loves you very much." 😅
I LMAO when Cheryl/Neve spanks Sebastian with her slipper.
I've heard this is especially common in India with dangerous skin scream being very common. It feels like a missed opportunity not to do this with an Indian woman.
That's just a colorism problem. Not literally passing as a white person. But as a light skinned person. Very different.
@@yennefer440 they can do there own they have a massive film industry
It's different wrt Indians. We don't have the concept of race here. What we have is caste based discrimination. And skin color doesn't has much to do with caste. There are dark skinned upper caste people and there are fair skinned lower caste people. But yeah when it comes to beauty/attractiveness the Indian society is skewed towards Fair skin.
@@yellowsquirrel4799 Indians definitely were influenced by race by colonization by the British
@@40s_fit_and_fab30 What's that got to do with anything? The UK has a huge Desi population. Wouldn't be bad if they had Indian people in their movies. This mentality is giving only Black people should be in Nollywood movies. Like, what are you saying?
The dang lady cherished a better life than her seeds how freaking selfish
OK....I'm usually the tough critic...but I really liked this movie! And the ending was perfect...I mean. What else would you expect to happen??? The hostage situation has absolutely NOTHING to do with her kids being black. They were P!$$ED off!!! And Neve/Cheryl leaves them AGAIN...and her new kids for the first time...Leaving them all Parentless! Perfect.
I love reading the comments and many had my sentiments. I think was a thought provoking movie. Cheryl/Neve wanted a glamorous life without any uncomfortableness which isn't reality. Her reality in the England is, if you are tied to a black family there will be financial and social struggles and yet if you are tied to a white middle class family as a black person there will still be social struggles and with whites seeing you as an outsider. So, when life is too uncomfortable Cheryl leaves and start a new identity, her children and husband be damn.
I loved the ending. I think people are looking for a reason to sympathize with the lead character and the ending fixes that for you! 😂
You can’t sympathize for any character which makes this movie garbage. Ian was the only character you felt for and they killed him for no reason.
I loved the ending... Cheryl is the mascot for #fuckdemkids
What was the pill she was taking every morning after she put on her makeup?
Really hated Carl and dion
Instead of the strays should’ve called it…”The deadbeat mother”
As soon as she said let me get you a tip I knew she was going to run. Now did she run to get help or did she run out of town? That's the real question. I think she ran out of town. The Strays 2, all four of her children finder in another country with a new baby and kill her and her husband and take the baby.
So, mum was the real stray. And why did her abandon son look like he was nearing retirement age? He had a face only a mother could love, I'd run away too😒
As always you have the best breakdowns online...👏👏👏💜💜🤗🤗 Appreciate you Daddy!! 👍✌🏽🤗💜
Funny I just watched this movie last night. It was a hot mess and totally unbelievable. True that biracial people sometimes choose the white side if they can pass to supposedly have a better life but this woman actually said that she was a proud black woman. Lies!! And those children were as black as I am. Hence not being biracial 😒. I finished it begrudgingly but don't waste your time it sucks.
Don't know why they cast a mixed woman in the role if she was supposed to be a light-skinned but fully black woman. They should have acknowledged that she was mixed rather than insisting she was black.
I think that an actual light skinned black woman would have been better cast. Ashley Madekwe is mixed race and looks it so seems strange to ignore that point that viewers could assume she is half white. Also the kids especially the daughter looked more 1/4 than half black..
I also felt the move gave the impression that Neve's kids should identify as black, rather than mixed race. Perpetuates the idea of one drop rule..
@@honeybee19892 I agree.
5:19
Not all movies have to about the bigger picture. The ending is about her specifically. She's self-centered and only cares about herself. That's it really, that's the ending
It's kind of a mess considering she's not black whatsoever, she's biracial. I feel if they portrayed it as a confused biracial, I would understand, but they treat her like a black woman. There should be some understanding that she's picking a side, not just picking to be white.
Black people do happen to appear biracial when they are infact black. She was white passing. My family is all black and I have sooo many people in my family that look similar to the neve character.
@Styleby Cre It could be because your family chose or were denied to be both in the past.
My family is of mixed race (tri racial ancestry), but because of laws were only allowed to say they are black. However, many could pass as different ethnic groups.
@Walt If you're biracial, it means you are two races. If one race happens to be black, then you are part black, and whatever other part .
@@Darknesssleeps Yes. If you are biracial as in black and white, you are both fully black and fully white. And a biracial may choose how they identify.
@Walt I'm not really clueless. I'm triracial, so I have a lot of experience in this field, and opinions. It is OK if you disagree with me.
I also do not agree with calling black people african americans. Black people (in this country) are just Americans.
I dunno. Coming from South Africa, the moral of "all humans are terrible regardless of race" comes through clearly
congratulation for seeing the truth, majority of AMericans are brainwashed by Victim mentality, blame everything wrong to someone else just like those teens
this movie made Bpeople look terrible.
As a fellow South African, I also thought that message clearly came through 🤷♂️
They wanted to see if she remembered them. Watch from afar. Maybe too nervous to just approach her. Maybe had the hope she's see them and be happy. Especially since we heard Carl say, in the bathroom,"we thought you were dead".... And carl had Mary use His phone to order Uber eats
The ending is RIDICULOUS, you are right about that!!!
I thought this was the movie about stray animals lol
Well you weren't wrong...
That was the fridge magnet she left the note with the story ties together well, I wonder why they didn't hold their father to the same regard? More kids should hold men to the same standard
Carl gave Mary his mobile phone to order Uber eats 🤦🏻
I liked the ending. Abandonment doesn’t feel good. It’s empty. And that’s exactly what she does. The first set hypothesis was she wanted to be white and left them cuz they are black. But then she leaves the whiter ones and it reveals she’s all about herself
I feel like the movie's main problem is that it had about 10 main "points" it was trying to get across, but in the process ended up pretty much cancelling all of them out
This movie was awful and did a terrible job at getting its point across. As soon as they made Carl and Dione bad influences, it was over for me. It’s like Cheryl’s want of washing away her blackness was almost validated by the writers cause all Carl and Dione did as soon they showed up was cause trouble. They made Cheryl’s fear of Carl being no good for Sebastian come to life. Everything about this movie made being black seem scary, aggressive, resentful, irresponsible and evil. I did not like this at all.
Her past trauma was poverty! Lol, people in poverty are traumatized on a regular basis because some fucked up hurdle is always coming your way and you better learn to jump
Wasn't a bad movie lol...I expected something worse but this was decent ...the ending made me LOL...also shout out to the ending song from Lord Kitchener ...a Trinidadian like myself ...respect...
The writers of this show got this idea for the movie Flowers in the Attic think it was 1987 when that movie came out. The mother was disowned by her rich family because of who she married . that husband died and she had to go and live with her rich family but she hid her children who was never accepted by her family, in their attic so she can get remarried and get the rich husband she was supposed to have in the first place.
The ending was so stupid it was only saved by her leaving all of them showing that she was just an overwhelmed pos. I love how she didn't forget her wallet to
Enduring is a good word to express the feeling of this movie
Interesting. How do you think it was endearing?
How did she become rich in the first place?
Her new husband?? I suspect she was also doing a charity fraud because she hated black people. So that whole disabled Gambia children fundraiser was a fraud scheme.
The movie was very extremely aggravating but the ending was very apt.
Up till then, I thought the movie was trying to win some sympathy for her psychopathic behavior.
I didn’t like that they villainized the victims; the kids who were abandoned by their mother.
I actually liked this movie, maybe because I looked at Neve as the monster hurt people hurt people. She wasn’t at peace even in her make believe world. She damaged all around her because she couldn’t deal with herself. So yeah you could get hung up on colorism, stereotypes, or see it as a selfish,insecure, abusive woman who lived a lie. Which cause multiple people hurt pain and not to mention life. She clearly didn’t love any of them.
This movie had potential up until the Family Reunion scene. Ian and Cheryl’s reaction to having their house broken into made no sense to me.
Top 5 worst Netflix movie of the year
The last 20 minutes are so infuriating. At no point does anyone resist the events or run outside (the front door stayed open). They flood the mobile phones, but the landline is still ok.
There are so many conviniences. Also sub plots that lead to nothing (the assault on the basketball player has zero consequences. It is just there to show that the stray son wants to corrup and is full of evil).
This was my first bad movie of the year.
I sympathised with Carl and Dione at first coz they're just young adults who were abandoned by their mother from young and had lived shitty lives. But then I lost any sympathy for them when they broke into Ian's and Cheryl's house, practically held the family hostage AND murdered Ian for no good reason when Ian himself wasn't aware of Cheryl paying off her old kids. Carl and Dione just represent the stereotype of gangster black people. And with Carl's unreasonable bad temper (probably got it from his abusive daddy), I wanted nothing more than for Carl to get beaten up or just killed along with his equally fucked up sister.
I sympathised with Cheryl because she was just another victim of domestic abuse but then she just ran away once again, leaving behind all 4 of her kids including the innocent ones who had nothing to do with this (Mary and Sebastian) plus their father was murdered. In the end, she was a coward.
Ian, Mary and Sebastian are just the innocent people in Cheryl's mess with Ian paying it with his life, his kids are now orphans and left with this huge ass alongside their half-siblings.
Overall, an infuriating movie with such an ambiguous ending.
Okay. So firstly, if she had to keep scratching that wig she needs to find a better wig dealer because That wig just ain’t cutting it.
Now into my take on this show.
As a black woman in the UK who has invested the majority of my life into transcending the ranks of classes, this show was hilarious, saddening and awkward to watch all at the same time.
It expresses how much women of colour have to change themselves in order to be accepted and all of the pressures and consequences that come with that. Although, the mother was a horrible person, it shows the worst of society when they are ostracised, marginalised and ‘unworthy’ in the eyes of the system.
The majority of black people in the UK are from lower socio-economic backgrounds than their counterparts. Not because they are stupid or less intelligent, but a load of factors/ pressure that work against them.
I like it that the show just made a mess because it’s a perfect reflection of societies social construct.
Some of the casting choices seem unrealistic. The leading actress "Neve" appears to be a bi-racial woman; therefore I find it highly unlikely that she would have given birth to two fully-black children (even if the father was African). Also, I highly doubt Neve would have any issue blending into predominately white spaces as lighter-skinned minorities are often viewed and treated differently. They should have cast someone who presents as "Black" to make the plot more believable.
i didnt mind the ending, just super brutal, basically she was so savage not only did she ditch the first fam (which makes you wonder if its cuz of their darker skin /her wanting to live the 'white life' of a lighter skinned family and not for the reasons she gave since the last scene puts her motives/moral compass completely into question) - the final shot makes it clear her two newer kids are now strays too (strays TWO coming soon lol) but as bleak as it is seeing the cycle continue made narrative sense for me...not a great movie but i thought the end was actually decent even if the 'twists' were obv af and never went anywhere that interesting...
It was horrible. With so many opportunities to explore deep social issues but missed the plot at every attempt
Spot on review.
I just fine Dione creepy with her voice and the way she laughs.
Ending Explained or Review?
PICK ONE
This was someone thinking they are making a Jordan Peele movie but instead make a M. Night movie instead lol