“The Strays”

Movie Review

Nathaniel Martello-White is the writer and director of the British horror movie The Strays. Neve, who is portrayed by Ashley Madekwe in the movie, is a biracial, upper-class woman who lives a happy life with her family. Neve's affluent life as a socialite in her neighborhood and the deputy headmistress of a prestigious school is threatened when her difficult past resurfaces to tear apart everything she has created. In 2023, the movie was released.

Black woman Cheryl resides in an obscure part of England. On the phone, she talks to her sister about her worries about discrimination and her financial situation. In the scenes that follow, she ignores her husband's calls and writes a note on the refrigerator announcing her intention to visit a hair salon.

A few years later, Neve, a fair-skinned Black woman married to Ian, a white guy, and the mother of Sebastian and Mary, two multiracial children, enters the picture. She despises everything connected to "blackness." Neve wants to organize a charity banquet at her house while also working as the deputy headmistress at her children's school. She frequently experiences disturbing visions of black people. Neve runs into two black people she thinks are strangers at the charity banquet; they address her as their mother.

In a flashback from five days earlier, the two black people Neve has been seeing—"Carl and Dione"—serve as the story's main characters. Carl assumes the name "Marvin" and accepts a position as a school janitor while Dione assumes the name "Abigail" and works as an assistant at Ian's office. The two are on an unidentified mission that involves staying at a hotel. Dione invites Mary to the hotel room for drinking and partying, while Carl invites Sebastian to smoke after his basketball game as they become friends with Neve's kids. Then, Carl persuades Sebastian to viciously assault his school bully.

Neve is shown to be Cheryl in the present, and Carl and Dione are in fact her children. As they return to London, she meets them at a diner and gives them each 10,000 pounds to help them get back on their feet. However, Neve's home is broken into by Carl and Dione. After collecting everyone's phones, Carl places them in the sink and turns on the water, which causes the living room to begin to flood. Dione's birthday is today, therefore the family should celebrate together, Carl and Dione insist, forcing them to order Uber Eats.

Neve is confronted by Carl for trying to settle the debt, which the rest of her family was unaware of. Ian threatens to get a divorce as a result, but Dione steps in and recommends playing a board game. Neve throws up while clearly agitated. She then seems to take on a new, cheery character, and the group starts playing Scrabble. After giving up the game out of annoyance, Carl demands that Ian go with him to the family's gym. There, Carl forces Ian to raise more and heavier objects until he can no longer support them and the object falls on him, causing what appears to be his death.

Neve tells the group she will tip the Uber Eats driver and return in a moment after the driver comes, but she does not. The driver's engine fires up and he speeds off, leaving the impression that Neve has followed. Neve has now abandoned her second set of kids, leaving Mary and Sebastian along with Dione and Carl standing in the wet living room.

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