I had the privilege to be invited to an early screening of The Strays at BFI Southbank days before it’s global release on Netflix.
The Strays is a psychological thriller which is very is difficult to describe without spoiling it so I’d suggest watching the film first before continuing reading this article. Let’s just say if you enjoy a bit of mystery, plot twists and Jordan Pele type films then you may find some slight enjoy out of it.
Upon initial viewing I thought The Stays was an interesting, compelling and different type of film especially coming from a underrepresented writer and director. It’s great to see more varied stories are being told from a underrepresented background and not the typical narrative you’d expect. Not only that but this film was commissioned by Netflix who picked it up from Film4 but why?
Only a couple of days after it’s release on Netflix, The Strays received massive backlash on social media in particular on TikTok with content creators stating that the film is anti-black and that they felt uncomfortable watching certain scenes from the film. Now this entirely goes against everything I said in the previous paragraph saying the film is different however many viewers believe it’s reinforcing the black stereotype. I’ll be going into more detail below so spoilers are in full effect from now.
This biracial mother leaves her black children in London to start a new family with a Caucasian husband outside of London. Now first it seems as if the biracial mother is trying to escape her blackness as it feels as if there’s a lot of self hate towards her black features in the film. Her black strayed children are able to locate their mother however they come across very violent and aggressive when they do and there are many examples of this. Before a share some examples, it’s important to note the contrast in behaviors’ between the stayed black children and her new biracial children.
So Marvin (black strayed boy) played by Jorden Myrie teaches Sebastian (biracial boy) played by Samuel Small to be violent having him allegedly kill his school bully and making him smoke weed. While Abigail (black stayed girl) played by Bukky Bakray pressures Mary (biracial girl) played by Maria Almeida to drink alcohol. The question is why are the strayed kids projecting negative black stereotypes on the biracial kids who are portrayed as innocent throughout the whole film? What have Mary and Sebastian done to receive this treatment and why are Jorden and Abigail so violent?
Despite having those questions linger in my mind, I am still able to enjoy the film for what is it. regardless on your opinions on the narrative and negative racial undertones, I have to congratulate the writer and director Nathaniel Martello-White for putting on a film which provided a lot of tension and discourse amongst the audience. It’s good that we can unpack this film and have intelligent conversations about the film’s themes and concepts. I really enjoyed the film’s structure, acting, visuals, original score, music, costume and prop design so that should be applauded.
Have you watched The Strays? If so, let me know your thoughts below?
Written by P Rose
