Tyler Perry’s Straw has left quite a number of people still confused about the events of the film. [Spoiler Alert] It’s mostly because in Straw’s ending it is revealed that Janiyah Wiltkinson’s eight-year-old daughter, Aria, passed away the previous night, and the sudden tragedy took a toll on Janiyah’s mental health. She started imagining things in order to fill the void left by her daughter. After her daughter’s demise, she went on living the next day as normally as she could, and this was the reason why several viewers failed to differentiate between Janiyah’s imagination and the incidents that actually took place. So, without further ado, allow me to list down all these scenes from the film where Janiyah’s conflicted mind was filling in the gaps to escape the truth about Aria’s death.
Aria Was Never In The Room
In Straw’s ending, Janiyah’s mother told her that Aria had a seizure last night that claimed her life. We even saw a flashback scene where Janiyah was carrying her daughter, wrapped in a blanket, walking out of a hospital room. Here it could be speculated that she left Aria in the hospital and came back to her rented room alone. She fixed a meal for herself and Aria, which suggests she’d already erased the incident of her daughter’s tragic demise from her mind the moment she walked out of the hospital, and imagined that she brought Aria back home and tucked her in. In short, Janiyah didn’t wake Aria the next morning, nor did she give her a bath in the tub. In both of these scenes, Aria wasn’t present.
The landlady likely didn’t know about Aria’s death
You know, I’m sometimes baffled by how ignorant people in big cities are. I mean, I am a small-town guy, and almost everyone knows everyone around. So, if someday I walk out of the house carrying my kid’s school bag, but my kid isn’t there with me, obviously the neighbors, who are mostly hanging outside in the morning, are going to ask me what’s going on, right? But Janiyah’s landlady didn’t bother with any such questions. She was least bothered about her tenant, and most concerned about her unpaid rent. She didn’t ask Janiyah where Aria was, nor did she seem interested. Here, I am assuming that the landlady didn’t have the slightest idea that Janiyah had recently lost her daughter. Because I’d like to believe, no human being would be so merciless and vicious as to throw a tenant’s belongings out on the street if they were aware that they’d recently lost a member of their family.
Janiyah Drove To School Alone
It was kind of strange when Aria’s teacher gave such a weird reaction to Janiyah when she arrived at the school. I mean, the scene actually foreshadowed that something wasn’t right, but maybe all of us believed that the whole fuss was about the lunch box debt. Though it was revealed in Straw’s ending that the schoolteacher was quite taken aback when Janiyah not only drove to school but also opened the car door for her daughter to step out. Likely the teacher already knew about Aria’s tragic demise, which was why her eyes got moist when she saw a mother still struggling with her kid’s death.
Janiyah’s boss, Richard, didn’t know about Aria
It was quite ironic that Janiyah’s boss, Richard, the store manager, told her that an employee had called in sick the moment Janiyah walked in. I mean, he could have asked Janiyah if she was alright too. I know it’s impossible for an employer to know all the personal stuff about their employees, but maybe sometimes a casual conversation about family or friends wouldn’t do any harm. But no, Richard was mostly concerned about the store and who would attend to the customers and didn’t even let Janiyah catch her breath before asking her to get to work.
Janiyah Didn’t Get A Call From School
This one is a bit tricky. So, what actually happened was that Janiyah received a call from someone who inquired about the unpaid bills she had. However, throughout the film, the thing that had been troubling Janiyah, or perhaps the concern that was stuck in her mind, was the “40 dollars” her daughter had asked her to pay for her school lunch. It’s quite complex, but you see, to a mother, it was kind of an unfulfilled wish her kid had. Janiyah wasn’t able to pay that 40 dollars because she hadn’t received her paycheck. Now, at this juncture, when she had lost a daughter, she wasn’t bothered about any other debt except the one she owed to her daughter. The money she wasn’t able to pay to her daughter’s school is the exact reason why she kept bringing up that 40-dollar debt throughout the film. Hence, when someone called her asking about those unpaid bills, all Janiyah could think of was the debt she had to pay to the school.
Janiyah Did Go To The School
In a brief scene, Janiyah walked into the Benevolent Bank and Trust, as she wanted to withdraw the money she had; however, due to the low balance in her account, she couldn’t do so. This scene did happen for real, and this was when Nicole, the bank manager, first interacted with Janiyah. Nicole knew something was wrong and really wanted to help Janiyah, but her hands were tied.
Aria Wasn’t At School
Janiyah imagined that she received a call from Aria’s teacher, but it wasn’t real. When she reached the school, she imagined a whole lot of other things, like Aria being taken by child protective services, maybe because she was trying to come to terms with how losing one’s child feels. I guess this was the closest she got to accepting her separation from her daughter before the film’s ending, but once again, the matter of that 40 dollars took over. She believed that getting her paycheck would bring her daughter back. As she was leaving, Aria’s teacher even told her that she never made any such call, but Janiyah’s mind totally blanked out the conversation as she wasn’t yet ready to accept reality.
The Cop Terrorizing Janiyah Was Real
Janiyah was driving back to the store to ask Richard for her paycheck when she had a terrifying road accident, where a terrifying White cop named Oliver not only bumped into her car but also threatened to mess up her life if he saw her again. This was when another officer named Sam wrote her a ticket and impounded her car, because of which Janiyah had to walk all the way back to her workplace.
Richard Firing Janiyah Really Happened
Because of the accident, Janiyah reached the store two hours later, giving Richard enough reason to fire her from the job. However, Janiyah couldn’t care less about her job, all she wanted was her paycheck, and therefore asked Richard to clear her dues. But he refused to do so. He said it was company policy that all employees should receive their paycheck in the mail. Well, you could see him literally harassing Janiyah, unaware of the things she was going through. If he knew the truth, he would have just given her the money and let her grieve in peace, but he didn’t.
The landlady threw Out Janiyah’s belongings
As I mentioned earlier, neither Richard nor the landlady knew about Aria’s death, which most likely was the reason why they acted so heartlessly. While Richard fired her, the landlady evicted her and threw all of Janiyah’s items out on the road while it was raining outside. These included her daughter’s belongings, which were the only things Janiyah had of her.
Janiyah Really Shot Richard
Janiyah had no other means to get money on short notice, so she went back to the store and begged Richard to give her her paycheck so she could pay off her daughter’s school, but Richard didn’t budge. Coincidentally, at the same time, two robbers entered the manager’s office and tried to rob him with a gun, but before they could do so, Janiyah, who’d literally had enough, finally snapped and tried to stop the robbers from stealing her hard-earned money. She shot one of the robbers in a scuffle and was already traumatized by the whole incident when Richard accused her of setting up the robbery. He called 911, but Janiyah couldn’t afford to go to prison. She had a daughter to look after, at least in her mind, and therefore shot Richard, taking only her paycheck from Richard’s table, which was piled with wads of cash. Janiyah never intended to harm anyone. Nor did she want to steal from anyone. She just wanted her money that she had earned through her own sweat and blood.
The Whole Bank Sequence Was Real
I think the shooting of the masked robber and Richard was yet another traumatizing incident for Janiyah that unsettled her already conflicted mind. By this time, she was more fixated on the 40 dollars than anything else. Or maybe she had convinced herself that her child was safe with child protective services and she only needed to arrange money to get her back, which was the reason why she was so hell-bent on cashing her paycheck. From here onwards, nearly everything that happened in the bank was real. Out of all the bank employees and the customers, only Nicole knew about Janiyah’s loss, but she didn’t want to confront the grieving mother with the truth, as she believed she might have a real bomb in her possession. She played along with her until, in the end, Janiyah’s mother called her and brought her back to reality. It was through her that we found out that Aria had died the previous night.
The armed officers didn’t shoot Janiyah
As soon as the revelations hit Janiyah, she imagined a scenario where the armed officers barged into the bank and pointed their guns at Janiyah. She was in shock as she didn’t know how to respond to the news of Aria’s death and therefore didn’t hear when the officers asked her to raise her hands. The officers wasted no time and fired shots at Janiyah, killing her on the spot. Well, none of that actually happened, but yes, getting that news did kill Janiyah from the inside. It would have almost felt like hundreds of bullets piercing her heart, and I think that was what this scene was representing.
Janiyah Really Was Arrested
All the scenes that we saw from the point of view of Detective Kay Raymond and the other police officers were all real. Raymond did know about Aria from the very beginning, and really wanted to help the mother, which was why she was so cautious and took all precautionary measures not to harm Janiyah in any way. And yes, the FBI arrived at the location too, and the bank employee did go live with her phone camera, due to which everyone was able to hear Janiyah’s story in her own words. In short, the entire final sequence where we saw Janiyah being arrested by the law enforcement authorities and a huge crowd of people asking for her release was all real.
I guess I have covered most of the events in the film which might have been confusing, but if you still have any questions, then feel free to drop a comment in the box below, and I’ll surely answer them as well.
