Certificate: 15 (strong threat, violence, language). Running Time: 100 mins. UK Distributor: Netflix
WHO’S IN IT?
Ashley Madekwe, Bukky Bakray, Jorden Myrie, Justin Salinger, Caroline Martin, Michael Warburton, Samuel Small, Maria Almeida, Vanessa Bailey, Izzy Billingham
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Nathaniel Martello-White (director, writer), Valentina Brazzini, Tristan Goligher and Rob Watson (producers), Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch (composer), Adam Scarth (cinematographer), Mark Towns (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
An upper-middle-class woman (Madekwe) finds her perfect life unravelling when two mysterious figures (Bakray and Myrie) enter…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE STRAYS?
Suburbia, as we’ve learned from the likes of American Beauty, Poltergeist and Blue Velvet, is rarely ever as pleasant on the inside as it is on the outside. It’s a tradition that steadily continues in Nathaniel Martello-White’s directorial debut The Strays, where the plentiful exteriors of the affluent suburbs once again hide a much more sinister and unsavoury truth that often makes for compellingly intense viewing.
However, in this case, Martello-White adds an intriguing new layer of social commentary that explores a number of hot-button topics in modern society, most notably the suppression of one’s racial identity to truly progress in life, and the devastating consequences that arise from it, all of which gives the familiar dissection of suburbia a shiny new pack of tools to work with.
The Strays takes place in an idyllic English countryside town, where an upper-middle-class biracial woman named Neve (Ashley Madekwe) has seemingly the perfect life: she has wealth, a nice house, a cushy job as the deputy head of a local private school, a loving and supportive husband in the form of Ian (Justin Salinger), and two bright teenage children Sebastian (Samuel Paul Small) and Mary (Maria Almeida). She frequently takes steps to suppress her Black heritage, such as wearing wigs over her natural hair and discouraging her children’s blossoming curiosity about their own biracial identity, to blend into the overwhelmingly white community, and so far it’s worked out well for her – but the unexpected arrival of two young Black citizens Marvin (Jorden Myrie) and Abigail (Bukky Bakray), who turn out to have a surprisingly close connection with Neve, sends her into a state of panic that threatens the life she has built for herself.
While it may sound like Martello-White’s film is taking more than a few pages from the Jordan Peele school of modern racial commentary, The Strays owes much more to the work of Michael Haneke – particularly Funny Games, which is even homage here during one major section – for its gradual reveal of something ugly and rotten at the centre of its story. It is a film that boldly shows how deeply, sometimes irredeemably, flawed its main characters are, to where you’re not entirely sure who exactly you’re supposed to have the most sympathy for, because they all show themselves to be capable of committing some truly horrific acts that leave you doubting whether there’s any humanity left in them. As in Haneke’s Funny Games, Martello-White downright refuses to offer any easy solutions or even the hint of a happy Hollywood conclusion, instead leaning hard into the depraved nature of both its protagonists and antagonists to show how messed up the whole situation really is.
As a first-time feature director and writer, Martello-White shows formidable strength in building up tension and stress as we see events from multiple perspectives which change how you may have perceived previous scenes. The film is split into different sections, each one adding something vital to the development of this surrounding story, and as before stripping away all the glossy layers until it reaches the rotted-out core. Even if one section doesn’t always reveal something new that hadn’t been considered in the one right before, it is still neatly paced enough to keep you guessing, and the performances are highly nuanced and fang-sharp in their ability to make you interested in their characters despite their horrific qualities. Ashley Madekwe is on fiery form in an extremely tricky role that could have felt so one-note and cartoonish if played so wrong, but the actor finds great little tics to work with that reveal a much more damaged, but by no means sympathetic, person whom we are following. Elsewhere, Jorden Myrie has a number of great scenes where he gets to intimidating as hell, while Rocks breakout Bukky Bakray leaves a lasting impression as someone clearly and profoundly affected by an understandable level of trauma.
The film is smart as it picks away at its central themes and ideas while still giving audiences a mostly satisfying thriller that works perfectly well as something to queue up on Netflix. However, there are times when it undercuts its own logic, to a point where you’re not sure why certain people would or wouldn’t do something when given the opportunity that would inevitably fix the majority of their problems. There’s also the matter of the ending, which is likely to cause the most division amongst viewers; not necessarily for what happens, because it does make sense when you know the context of the characters and situations involved, but for how abruptly it finishes, with a number of queries still left to be addressed and the rather bitter taste it leaves in one’s mouth. It’s not a safe ending by any means, and it’s admirable that it went that extra mile to not give the kind of ending we’ve been conditioned to expect, though its suddenness in addition to the mean-spiritedness it implies might not entirely go over too well with other viewers.
Even though it doesn’t entirely work, The Strays does manage to keep your attention for just long enough to get sucked in to the uncomfortable atmosphere that Martello-White and his formidable ensemble cast create for you on the screen. However, while it is a smarter and more ambitious British Netflix thriller than Babak Anvari’s recent I Came By, part of me would personally rather watch that film again over this one, because it felt a bit more aware of its own trashiness and had at least a few more people who I could easily root for, whereas this one – while perfectly decent – was trickier to stomach, even if that was the overall intent.
SO, TO SUM UP…
The Strays is a bold psychological thriller that isn’t afraid to regularly show the rotten cores of its central characters, whose deeply and sometimes irredeemably flawed actions are made all the more chilling by sharp filmmaking from Nathaniel Martello-White and intense performances from the strong cast, although it may prove to be divisive for its occasional leapfrogging over logic, and an ending that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
