The Strays

The Strays has arrived on Netflix, and the new thriller builds to a shocking and dark finale, so let's delve into what happened and why.

Talking to Digital Spy, Madekwe revealed that the prologue and callback weren't in the original script. While this is happening, dinner arrives and Neve answers the door to the delivery driver. They tell her that even though she thinks she left them in the care of her sister, she didn't want them and "gave us away". In the build-up, Neve starts to suspect that she's being stalked by a young Black man, who she later sees working as a caretaker at her school, and a young Black woman. It's Dione's birthday and they want the whole extended family to celebrate together with a Chinese takeaway. She's working as the deputy head of the local private school and arranging a charity gala in a few days' time.

First-time writer-director Nathaniel Martello-White tries for a racial-tension thriller in the vein of His House, Master, or Jordan Peele's Us, but until ...

He builds the story around the question of why and how someone would remake their life in a different image, and what it costs to do so. Martello-White seems to want The Strays to be a film about the fault lines in British Black identity, and in class divisions, too. The effect the characters do have is entirely down to the performers: Jorden Myrie as the young man, and Bukky Bakray as the woman. If anything, it hews even closer to Get Out, as it drops the supernatural allegory and horror imagery in favor of something more psychologically real, more disturbingly close to the surface of society. [brilliant, successful movie](https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/28/14762250/get-out-key-peele) that left a comet-like tail blazing across the art and business of film. Back in 2020, Netflix produced Remi Weekes’ [His House](https://www.polygon.com/2020/10/30/21542815/his-house-review-netflix-horror-movie), one of the best British horror films of recent years, a chilling haunted-house movie that explores, with great specificity, the experience of Sudanese asylum-seekers clinging to the precarious, crumbling foothold they’ve been offered in British life.

Exclusive: We speak to The Strays stars Ashley Madekwe and Jorden Myrie about the inspirations behind the new Netflix movie.

And we do learn a lot about them as you say, but there are a lot of gaps. Jorden Myrie: Yeah, it informs what you're going to do and how you respond to other characters. That's, again, what really drew you into it because you get to see all those different angles and learn more about them. There are horror elements but that’s only in the first act, and then you realize, ‘oh this is something else, this is maybe a family drama’. Nathaniel [Martello-White, director] and I spoke about how often in horror movies there’s that classic trope of characters being gaslit, are they really seeing what they think they’re seeing? Was this something that appealed to you about the project?

Ominous. It's a key vibe here. Also portentous and foreboding. You know, like something's going to break.

It’s not as funny or unsettling as it needs to be, with a predictable end-of-act-one twist and a conclusion that’s surprising in its logic, but isn’t precluded by the nerve-wracking buildup of suspense it needs to pack a serious wallop. In that opening sequence, she asks if it’s wrong to want more, and now that she’s got more, what does it mean, what did she have to do to attain it, and was it worth the effort and apparent sacrifice? She’s out for tea with an associate and sees a man in a red cap (Jorden Myrie) in the background, and she’s unsettled. Her cell phone rings and she doesn’t answer it and then the landline rings and she doesn’t answer that either. She seems to be developing quite a (scratch scratch scratch) (damn wig) tic. He amps up the ominousness with a cliched musical score, stalker-in-the-periphery visual cat-and-mouse games, and the usual gaslighting of the protagonist. The film almost timidly skirts the edge of satire, as if it wants to slash racial tropes and dynamics to ribbons, but didn’t sharpen its claws enough. Martello-White’s intent and ambition is notable, but his hand is heavy. She pops a prescription pill, which isn’t a big deal at all, lots of people take prescription pills every day, but this is a movie and it makes a point of the shake from the bottle and the – glunk – swallow. It’s either Cheryl/Neve’s sanity, or a flimsy secret about to be traumatically Humpty-Dumptied – a secret hinted at in the film’s opening sequence. Neve is married to a nice enough Caucasian fellow, Ian (Justin Salinger), and they have two teenagers, Sebastian (Samuel Small) and Mary (Maria Almeida). Whether The Strays has something to say about vital issues of the day remains to be seen, but one thing that’s certain is, this affluent woman Got Out but ended up very deep into something else entirely.

The Strays is a new nail-biting psychological thriller on Netflix, but is it based on a true story, or a book?

[Treason](https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/is-treason-on-netflix-based-on-a-true-story-2016923/) [Kaleidoscope](https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/is-kaleidoscope-on-netflix-based-on-a-true-story-2020286/) [Dog Gone](https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/is-new-netflix-movie-dog-gone-based-on-a-true-story-2031134/) [Blonde](https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/is-netflixs-blonde-based-on-a-true-story-1942028/) [The Staircase](https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/is-the-staircase-based-on-a-true-story-1900122/) [here](https://www.dexerto.com/tv-movies/the-strays-full-cast-all-actors-characters-in-the-netflix-movie-2067299/).

+. Ashley Madekwe, Jorden Myrie and Bukky Bakray deliver brilliant performances · +. A well-written script keeps you guessing and not knowing who to trust · +.

She goes from being perfectly polished, to spiraling out of control, and Madekwe's performance is truly stunning. Even in a town full of wealth, big cars and fancy houses, no one is truly safe, and Neve can't run from her past. A brilliantly written script forces you to make your own mind up about characters, and your allegiance might shift throughout the course of the story, keeping things interesting. Quickly, things take a dark turn and Neve starts acting more and more erratically. In fact, Neve does everything in her power to keep her family away from the newcomers. She controls her children's styles and tastes, refuses to pay for service charge in a restaurant, and seems fixated on achieving perfection in all areas of her life.

The Strays cast is led by Salem actress Ashley Madekwe. But who else is in the thriller?

He is also known for playing Rob in the teen series So Awkward. Lucy joined the WhatToWatch.com team in 2021, where she writes series guides for must-watch programmes, reviews and the latest TV news. She is also known for her role in You Don’t Know Me. She seems to have a perfect life, she raises money for charity, her home, clothes and hair is always immaculate, and yet something's about to disrupt the status quo. However it's not long before the newcomer lashes out at her new friend, is she jealous of her home life? Grant in the mini-series Grant.

Ashley Madekwe in a still from The Strays. A suburban horror that offers a salacious peek into the secretive lives of the almost-wealthy, a social thriller that ...

In fact, presenting them — the only two overtly Black characters in sight — as the violent ‘villains’, especially when the movie itself wants us to believe that they’re the ones who’ve been wronged, is dicey optics at best, and self-defeating at worst. It is suggested, strongly, that Neve has never really been able to connect with her children, seeing in their mixed-race appearances hints of the past that she has worked so hard to bury. Neve’s husband recoils in shock at the sight of her pummelling their son, which is when he begins to recognise that something is seriously wrong with her. But things begin to spiral out of control when two strangers begin showing up at random times in Neve’s life, and begin to methodically pull at the seams of her perfectly crafted fake existence. She refuses to take it off even at home, as if her Blackness is a crime waiting to be discovered. Presumably presented with several options — she could have chosen to become anybody, really — she decided to transform herself into a sort of person that society had conditioned her into believing is superior.

Last year's Sundance Film Festival had a range of movies that followed in Get Out's footsteps, like Master and Nanny, often employed genre frameworks in ...

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We see Neve explain to her new family why she had to leave the children behind when she fled from their abusive father. the ending of the strays on netflix ...

With a piece like this, you can kind of look at it and think: 'Okay, how can we enhance this?' and I think showing a bit of the backstory is one of those things," she explained. We then jump forward a number of years to find Cheryl – now going by the name Neve – and living a completely different life. In what soon becomes an incredibly tense situation, Carl and Dione insist on celebrating Dione’s birthday with the whole extended family by playing a board game and ordering a Chinese takeaway. Her oldest daughter assumes that Neve will let them stay with her new new family, however, their mother attempts to make things right by giving her two oldest children – Carl and Dione – £20,000. [Netflix](https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/g12450465/netflix-best-new-films-tv-shows-documentaries/) and it has quite the ending! The movie begins with Cheryl – played by Ashley Madekwe – who is living a rather miserable life in London, packing up and deciding to leave her life behind.

The psychological horror thriller had us gripped the whole way through. But you may have some unersolved questions. Here's The Strays ending explained.

Netflix The Strays' Ashley Madekwe: “There's a lot of pressure for women to be defined by motherhood”. The actor talks race, afro hair and thrillers.

But I think that there’s been a shift in that people are more open to having the conversation and there are more people of colour working in those departments, which is really important. And we’re told what hair is professional and what hair is is considered groomed and what hair is considered beautiful. The Silence Of The Lambs is one of my favourite horror films. It seemed like a commentary on the ways that hair is politicised. I think the past is the monster for Neve, the entities she’s seeing in the first act are the monsters. And nobody makes what I think is a sound choice in the film. There’s a line where Neve says, “I did what fathers do all the time.” And I think it’s interesting because we do look at it differently when men leave behind a family. [Horrors](https://www.stylist.co.uk/tag/Horror) – which is one of many genres this film sits in – typically have a monster at the heart. I think that there’s a lot of pressure for women to be defined by motherhood: that the most important thing a woman can do is have a baby. I think the monster changes depending on the act and perspective. Also starring Bukky Bakray (Rocks) and Jorden Myrie, this is a powerful debut film from writer-director Nathaniel Martello-White about the inescapable scars differences of class and Ashley Madekwe (County Lines, Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, Revenge) stars as Neve, who abandons a difficult life in east London for an almost idyllic life in the suburbs as a mum, wife and deputy headteacher – “You’re practically one of us,” says one of the mums from school.

Nathaniel Martello-White's feature debut The Strays is a social thriller that lacks bite, discipline, and a third act. When the film abruptly ended, I.

The Strays might come from a place of impossible angst about everything from assimilation to self-hatred, but concludes with all the grace of an Irish exit on St. Neve’s behavioral commentary on “passing,” class mobility, and serving yourself over others provides a situation ripe for social investigation, but Martello-White’s third act tosses kerosene on expanding themes and dares the audience to figure it all out. A film built on obvious secrets divides itself into three acts, the first two of which — one about “Current Neve,” the second about Marvin and Abigail — are expositional to a sluggish fault. The introduction of Marvin (Jorden Myrie) and Abigail (Bukky Bakray) is so emotionally weighted, only to abandon character development in favor of a third-act horror bend. Martello-White toys with haunted visions and break-in foreshadowing with minimal degrees of intensity in an attempt to hone on Neve’s house of cards tumbling down at the slightest gust. Ashley Madekwe leads as a complicated housewife everyone knows as Neve, a light-skinned Black woman who embraces wigs, makeup applications, and the comforts of white suburbia.