You might see the final moment of The first time sex party videoStrayscoming, but you'll still try to convince yourself you're wrong, right up until that UberEats driver's engine starts.
Writer/director Nathaniel Martello-White's four-act social thriller examines race, class, and generational trauma, pivoting between perspectives and leading to the film's tense finale that's less family reunion, more home invasion. Streaming on Netflix, The Straysis the feature-length directorial debut of the British actor and playwright, whose celebrated plays including Blacktaand Tornhave examined racial politics, mixed-race families, and the deep effects of trauma.
SEE ALSO: Netflix’s 'End of the Road' is a tense social thriller that finds strength in familyExpanding on these themes for The Strays, Martello-White takes cues from Jordan Peele's thrillers Get Outand Us, but also counts influences as wide ranging as Michael Haneke's Funny Gamesand Hidden, David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, and Yorgos Lanthimos's The Killing of a Sacred Deer.
"I've always loved suburban thrillers, when crazy shit goes down in white picket fence neighbourhoods, I just love that. I don't know why," said Martello-White while onstage at The Strayspreview at the British Film Institute in London. "There's something about that perfection and that order that brings us closer to the characters before the drama takes off."
What is The Strays about?
Ashley Madekwe as Neve. And Cheryl. Credit: Chris Harris/Netflix The protagonist, Neve, is a complex character played by County Linesstar Ashley Madekwe. Living in an upper middle class, predominantly white, country neighbourhood with her husband Ian (Justin Salinger) and her teen children Sebastian and Mary (Samuel Small and Maria Almeida), Neve is the deputy head of a fancy private school. Ready to throw her first gala as a "graduation" into the community and daily practising her posh British accent, Neve prioritises code-switching and doing anything she can to blend in. She internalises racist microaggressions from her peers and remains determined to keep "anything Black off limits," as her son Sebastian explains it.
However, we've already met Neve in the prologue and in another life as Cheryl, a woman who flees an abusive relationship, systemic inequality, and economic instability in the city. Literal cracks start to form in her facade when two strangers named Abigail and Marvin (the incredibly talented Bukky Bakray and Jorden Myrie, respectively) show up in their small town.
Who are the "strangers" in The Strays?
Bukky Bakray as Abigail/Dione. Credit: Chris Harris/Netflix Told from a constantly shifting perspective, The Strayseventually reveals the true identity of the pair: They're Carl and Dione, Neve's children from her abusive relationship who were left behind with their aunt 20 years ago. They're curious to meet their replacements, Sebastian and Mary, and are keen to demand answers from their mother for their abandonment and erasure. It's here The Straysgoes beyond the Jordan Peele tense horror of it all to create unique, nuanced, highly complicated characters in Neve/Cheryl, Marvin/Carl, and Abigail/Dione.
In the production notes, Martello-White explained he came up with the idea for the film from a real story he'd heard about a biracial woman who'd had two sets of children, one Black and one white-passing. Like the twist of The Strays, she had refused to acknowledge her first pair of kids. "When I was told that story, it really stayed with me. The idea of this woman who was so caught up in shame that she would deny the existence of her Black children," he said.
Rocksstar Bakray takes on the childlike Abigail, who curiously meets, befriends, and interrogates her replacement, Mary.
"I think I resonated with Abigail's rage — or Dione's rage," Bakray told the BFI audience. "A synonym for rage is passion, and being someone whose passion has been translated as rage, it was an interesting and empathetic process getting into Abigail...having to mould yourself into a rageful self, and understanding that that rage is going to be translated as this kind of barbaric anger when it stems from trauma."
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Abigail/Dione and Marvin/Carl are both processing deep trauma and abandonment in The Strays, having been left by their mother and replaced with a whole new family. It's this motivation that complicates the film as a thriller, as the trailer, marketing, and events of the film present the siblings as menacing threats to Neve's controlled life. But is it that straightforward?
"Everyone sees it as a thriller, and it's like [Dione and Carl] are crazy," says Bakray. "But the word 'crazy' was never used when we were approaching these characters. It really made me realise that everyone that we see today who can look really barbaric and translated as they've 'lost their mind' and their actions don't make sense to everyday, made me realise that maybe with those people, we just haven't seen the build-up. Becoming the character, I felt the build-up, I understood the build-up…It was more about an understanding of empathy, extending my empathy, and extending my understanding."
Jorden Myrie as Marvin/Carl. Credit: Chris Harris/Netflix Myrie takes on the other stranger, Carl, with a performance of staggering range, desperately wanting to understand his mother's actions while not letting her off the hook for the pain she's caused.
"The interesting thing between Marvin and Neve is that they're the monsters in each other's stories," Myrie told the BFI. "He's motivated by pain. He just wants answers, ultimately, but I think in the search for that he doesn't know what he wants, really...When he meets Sebastian, that rocks his plan and his mentality towards what he's about to do.
"With Marvin, it's very easy to see him as just an angry person, but I definitely think it's so much deeper than that. You can see he's gone through so much trauma. It's had a deep effect on him, his mother leaving. The difference between himself and Abigail is that he was old enough to take that in as a core memory. He has a memory of his mother, and he's idealised that in a way."
What happens at the end of The Strays?
The final act, "Family Reunion," is technically that. Credit: Chris Harris/Netflix In the final chapter titled "Family Reunion," Carl and Dione execute their plan: to get the whole gang together for quality family time. But it's a little more forcedthan that, as the pair undertake a Funny Games-style home invasion sequence, flooding the house and demanding birthday activities for Dione, who's donned a shiny party hat. Neve's attempts to buy the pair off earlier in the film have landed as an insult, and the siblings instead force their way into the family, making them play Scrabbleand order Chinese food for delivery — seizing the family life they've been denied. "We must have missed a fair few board games. On Christmases and birthdays," Carl says in the scene. Truths come out about Cheryl's actions, and it doesn't end well for Ian, who meets a violent end in the home gym under Carl's orders.
The final scene on the shooting schedule and the only one that involved the entire cast, the home invasion sequence involved long, continuous takes in a waterlogged set. At one point Neve vomits into the water, overwhelmed with the reality of her children's presence.
"I don't want you to think that was fresh water every take," said Madekwe at the BFI preview. "We all were in my throw-up. Great bonding."
Much like the plays Martello-White is used to, the cast ran the whole scene through for each take, performing it a total of 26 times.
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"Every take that we shot was a full 18 minutes, so we had a lot of rehearsal," said Madekwe. "I was really daunted by the idea of it, but when it came to it, when we were doing the rehearsal with everyone, with all of the crew, every department there, it became like this dance."
The most shocking turn, however, is not Ian's horrendous death. Seeing an opportunity for personal escape through the innocent UberEats delivery driver who comes to the door during the home invasion, Neve calmly retrieves her wallet and jacket from upstairs, feigning a tip for the driver, and leaves with him. The Straysends with all four of her children standing aghast and abandoned with each other, listening to the sound of a motorbike driving away.
Why does Neve leave at the end?
"It's Neve versus everyone else, and she always picks herself." Credit: Chris Harris/Netflix As a character study, Neve's leaving makes sense, as chilling as it is to watch. Desperately trying to maintain control, Neve has spent decades burying her emotions, playing along, and finding the best way to personally come out on top — including in this final sequence. Without checking, Neve knows her husband Ian is dead, and instead goes to the table where her children are sitting, offering an apology: "I'm sorry for the way this has turned out. I hope one day you can forgive me." It's left ambiguous who she's speaking to, whether to Dione or Sebastian and Mary, but it's clear she's about to cut and run.
For the character motivation of Neve/Cheryl, Madekwe and Martello-White had a slogan: "Me versus you."
"It's Neve versus everyone else, and she always picks herself," Madekwe said onstage. The Strayspreempts this decision with Cheryl's initial decision to leave her children behind to save herself, reinforcing flight over fight as the character's key motivation.
"That ending was always going to be really tricky," said Martello-White. "It's quite a bold way to end the movie, but it feels like some people just are what they are, and they just return to that. She leaves at the beginning of the movie, and she leaves at the end."
"You wanted it to be more ambiguous at [one] point, didn't you?" said Madekwe. "You were playing around with different versions of it. But I think in my heart, when I read it, I thought, she is gone."
"She's gone," agreed said Martello-White. "I think she realises in that home invasion, that it's just beyond repair."
The Straysis now streaming on Netflix.
Topics Netflix Streaming