I saw her black childrens’ behavior as two underdeveloped kids throwing a tantrum because they want attention from their mother and feel abandoned. But instead of her being a parent and disciplining how she should, she just leaves. I think her character is scared of both blackness and motherhood
hmm her kids are a combo of numerous things. The mental health issues they clearly inherited from their mother and father + the mental health issues they developed from being raised in an abusive home + general fear of abandonment
this is such a good take i was thinking the exact same thing. i think it's a commentary on how a lot of black kids end up acting out because of trauma, not because black people are inherently more prone to delinquency, which a lotttt of racist people believe is the case. the fact that cheryl kept blaming their negative/dangerous behaviors on their blackness instead of blaming it on herself for abandoning and traumatizing them is so telling.
I feel like it's a response to her being abused. Her response to blackness is because it reminds her of her abusive ex. It's kind of like how some black men negatively respond to black women because of the abuse that they experience from their mom
@@sadesuarez2954 i feel she is just a awful person and doesn't like to be accountable for her poor decisions. At no time did she even worry about the younger children when she ran away for the second time. I hope the children hunt her down and get revenge.
As a Black person it was dumb. They could’ve had great commentary. They killed him because he was white and I felt like it was a play on our horror trope of dying first and was like pay back of some sort. But he wasn’t a terrible person. He knew NOTHING of the kids, wanted his daughter to be around Black people (albeit he did have some silly comments), told his wife she doesn’t NEED to wear a wig but I guess likes it a certain way (can’t remember if he was like “I like your hair straight). It was a bad decision and actually dragged the movie down because the killing wasn’t even interesting.
maybe Ian's death was a metaphor for Niamh(Neev/Cheryl) never faced accountability for her actions. It made sense for him to die as a consequence of her actions to show how Niamh never takes responsibility for things. just my hamfisted take ^-^
You'd THINK that she'd ask the delivery guy for help... But no, she's clearly learned nothing, and simply abandons all four of her children, two for the second time.
Nope. People in customer service go through enough! I wish I would as a delivery guy be asked to play John Wick when I barely got 2 cents to rub togetha!
To me they made Dione and Carl unnecessarily violent and “crazy”. Their anger was valid but the way the represented that in the movie, it makes me feel ashamed to show my emotions while being dark skinned? Like they made D & C more into monsters than the dead beat mom honestly….
True. Like this is the perfect scenario for one of those "who they said was the villain / the actual villain" memes bc they make the children seem like the bad guys when they were literally abandoned and likely abused and were rightfully upset at how Cheryl was treating them :// Edit: it's almost giving "angry black man/woman" stereotype. Which maybe it was meant to be a comment on that? How esp darker skinned black ppl can be seen as crazy or overdramatic or villainous even when they're rightfully angry.
Maybe it would have been interesting if the kids were just hurt and expressing their emotions maybe loudly but appropriately but the mom over reacted and acted like they were crazy and gaslit them. Through the moms over reactions she would cause the death of somebody or something like that. Thoughts?
i dont think its unneceassry i think they were just sick in general even before their mother abandoning them. Imo they had mental health issues they inherited from their mother and father + the mental health issues they developed from being raised in an abusive home + general fear of abandonmen. Being abandoned doesnt create such dangerous "crazy" people. Their mother is sick and their father was clearly sick too considering what he did
Oh she knew the husband was either dead or going to die. She left the kids with their aunt, who’d have to give them back to their apparently abusive father. And she was ready to leave her new children with killers and psychopaths. She’s a weirdo.
This movie gave nothing except a light-skinned BW being afraid of dark-skinned BP including her own 1st set of children that she abandoned unhinged and unnecessarily. Full disappointment.
@@marvelousmia I completely agree. This is the first comment I heard saying she's biracial. This is why she was able to pass as white in parts of the film. And I was also thinking the same thing about her kids.
@@marvelousmia "she would've had way whiter kids than what was portrayed in the movie" the chances are HIGH that her kids would look more white, but that's not exactly a guarantee with biology/genetics.
The ending scene is a running joke between my friend and I everytime there’s a small inconvenience we grab a coat and a wallet and be like “I hope you can forgive me”😭
When I watched it I just kept thinking, "this should've been a series instead of a movie". I stand by that because there was so much to unpack and they didn't get deep enough into anything for anything that happened to feel earned or impactful.
One time I'll disagree. What this movie needs is a different writer and director. The concept itself is interesting and could definitely work as a 2 hour movie but the people who made it didn't know what the hell they were doing.
They could have easily done a 6 episode limited series. First couple episodes where she starts to notice the black influence on her kids/see the man. Episode where it all kicks off at the gala/she tells the white family about what happened. Ep or 2 on her past and what that was like and then ep or 2 with the ending scene.
This movie makes slightly more sense if you view it as “disturbed colourist woman is both the protagonist and villain of this movie and ruins both her families lives”.
I may not have lived in England for decades but the idea that a light skinned Black woman from a council flat can move to another area and magicaly become ensconced of white upper middle class is just bizzare. The idea that you can climb social class with simple hard work is an American concept. Class is a much more rigid concept in England and is extremely white. Example - Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.🎉
Interesting. I’ve always observed England as being more rigidly based in class. Though I never saw it as much race based but legacy based. As in, those who pass their wealth from generations and gatekeep it. Of course England has racism, but I always thought immigrants who also have a legacy (exemple rich Nigerians, Middle Easterners and Asians) can access those higher class spaces in England with less hassle than in America where you can more easily be sanctioned or disadvantaged only for your race, an attestation of a very race based society. Even through “making it with hard work” in America keeps races pretty separated still… Thinking about it, I guess historically England is not a stranger to certain racial/ethnic exclusions. so I suppose it could be a similar thing in England, aside from the fact that most England is white so it reflects on the upper class. Though idk. Thanks for sharing.
My parents were mixed race from the rural middle class families in the Caribbean and part of the first generation mass migration to the "mother country." They were college educated lower middle class when we moved to this side of the Atlantic. The few really wealthy POC in England were indeed wealthy and upper class in their homelands and they are certainly not helping anyone up that ladder in Britain.
America isn't too different, granted I'm from the deep south but I can't tell ypu how many people echoed negativity for Harry "having the nerve to marry a black person despite being royalty".
It seemed to me that she married into higher society rather than hard work. Her whole gotcha is not doing the work but wanting an easier life i.e living off credit cards, easily abandoned her family & both sets of children at the sign of discomfort/challenge
I think the black kids being unhinged is supposed to be some type of self fulfilling prophecy ish like yes they embody all the negative things that she she fears but it’s not because they’re dark skinned is because their mom abandoned them and they had a traumatic upbringing
Sure, but they still...used dark skinned actors to portray "crazy" violent acting... Like, they could've written the movie to have either "real" (you know what I mean, real in the context of the story) children growing up in this unstable environment and therefore acting out as adults/near adults, or imaginary projections of all Neve/Cheryl's baggage about race, class, motherhood, etc that act according to her fears, or they could've turned it into a free for all fight where it's less "scary Black kids!!!" and more "when they're pushed to their limits everybody acts crazy," even "those 'scary' Black kids have a point, considering the sort of people they're dealing with." But what they actually did was imply that yes, actually, the dark skinned children are as bad as Neve/Cheryl fears.
The dark issue is still there. And the socioeconomic issue. She associated those dark children as her poor ugly dark past. The colorism was definitely a factor!
@@JukuduB i wasn’t trying to imply that colorism wasn’t a factor. The mom definitely prefers her light skin children I believe she thinks they are somehow better because of their proximity to whiteness but they’re just privileged kids with resource that the dark skinned children never had.
I think the water running was a symbol of the rising anxiety and pressure coming from each side of her family, especially when she asks to turn the water off, but the guy was like no, showing that he wants her to feel this anxiety and pressure. Only when she was about to leave did she turn the water off, as she found an opportunity to escape the pressure.
It would make more sense as a movie if her husband, kids and those around her didn’t know she was black, so her blackness haunting her and her fear of her kids blackness showing would pull it together more.
We have a million passing stories like that though. As someone who used to be like her (in attitude as a teen, I didn’t abandon any children lol), this is a topic that often goes ignored. There are light skinned people who want to escape blackness and any association causes a breakdown. Edit: I’m specifically talking about light skin black women and biracial black women who are not white enough to pass but have all the “right” ambiguous features to be considered the beauty standard within the black community (loose hair texture, “high yellow” skin etc.). We too often speak about people who can fully pass and not the people who resent the fact that they can’t pass that like to use their blackness when it is convenient.
This, like if this movie was set/based on a story around a light skinned black woman passing in the past would be a better way to illustrate the point they wanted to get across I think. (Though I say this and I think Netflix had another release with that concept called Passing but it was also poorly done. It was about 2 black women, one that could pass as white and the other living her life as the average black woman of the time. They were childhood friends, and bump into one another unexpectedly.) If Kennie wanted that could be added to the list for bad movies and a beat lol.
Honestly her just getting her purse and walking out the door at the end was iconic. Most of the rest of the movie seemed jumbled and weird but just getting her purse and "calmly" leaving was 10/10. It perfectly showed what her priority was (her stepford wife like put together image and casting away ANYTHING that didn't fit it).
A few of my family members would encourage me to not date darker people so my kids wouldn't be dark. Colorism is so dumb. Being black you have a chance of have either dark or light kids because of genetics just because you go light and light it doesn't eliminate the chance of having darker kids. My husband is dark and people were saying things like you're kids are going to have it hard they're going to have bad hair they won't have any confidence because they're dark. It's crazy.
I've gotten comments like that from my family and I HATE that shit. The blame for the colorism your children may face is placed on you for having them and on them for existing, rather than on the bigots who shame them for existing or a society that deems darker skin as lesser. Why is it "make sure your kids aren't too dark their lives will be harder" and not "stop making life harder for dark-skinned kids"?
Literally. Mixed people CAN have darkskin. My siblings and I are all DIFFERENT colors, my baby sister being a deep dark and my older sister being the vanilla. We're all mixed (black and indigenous). When it comes to genetics it's a guessing game. You really don't know what your baby is gonna look like. Also this "dark people with bad hair" is ignorant as well. Not only is there no such thing as "bad hair" it's also doesn't have as much to do with your skin color as people think it does. I'd consider myself darkskin in the summer and my mom is very darkskin and we both have type 3c 4a hair, while my older sister has type 4b.
The self hate in those people is insane... They haven't been around enough dark-skinned black people bc there are plenty with gorgeous natural hair and confidence to discredit all of that
The character/actress is mixed race. Yes mixed race + white CAN result in a "tanned" child (talking caramel) but thats rare af especially if the mixed parents black side is from the new world. The chances of a mixed + white family having a pale af child is much higher than a mixed + black family having an extremely dark child. Not saying it CANT happen, but its not as common, that child will more likely come out "brownskin" than extremely dark meanwhile mixed + white can create the whitest looking child ever or sometimes even mixed + mixed can too lol and colorist people know this which is why they push for anything that will MORE LIKELY give you a racially ambiguious, mixed or white child. E.g. the racist members of my family will "risk" a mixed person getting with a black person but they wont "risk" a black person getting with another black person. I have a friend who isnt even afro latino but has a similar rule in her family because of her racist black african granddad that did the same. His black daughter wasnt allowed to get with a black man because he didnt want black grandkids (she still did though without his approval lol) but his mixed race kids were allowed to get with black men because those kids would not be fully or look "that black". To this day he doesnt care about my friend (his black non mixed grandkid) because she looks west african, by that i mean eventhough she isnt darkskin she has west african features (features of her tribe) vs his other grandkids who vary from extremely lightskin to brownskin but have racially ambiguous features.
I don't know if the writer and director WANT us to view Sheryl/Neve as the villain and her kids and their actions as sympathetic and understandable given their mom just abandoned and replaced them, but that's how I felt about it? Could be my own mommy issues jumping out, but damn I was mad at her. Her ability to mistreat and discard anyone who didn't serve her goal of increasing her proximity to whiteness as much as possible was chilling.
i just think it was a *poor* attempt of the producer to portray the son trying to be in touch with his blackness. like, just stereotypical components of being black. i.e rap and hip hop and such.
@@ritchieashley8843 this movie would be far better if the BLACK children were also super light skin and were ultimate black stereotypes to try and be in touch with or whatever. It could've ended with them telling neve they did it cause the white children a d people around them never saw them as nonblack. And somehow a dark skinned person is there and is killed by neve. Anyway, almost anything would've been better than this.
@@alltheworldatmyfeet I think that’s what they were trying to do with the braids and all that, but they didn’t go fully in. The movie also blamed all that on the black children, which felt weird to me
Ok im from the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago specifically, and what that mother did did not surprise me. Its a common enough story here especially back in the day. Hell, my father's mother literally dropped him snd my aunt by their grandmother and went off to America got remarried to a whiteman and had two white passing sons and barely spoke to her first to her first 2 clearly black children. I met her around 14-15 and for tge most part she barely interacted with me, her first grandchild, yet made strides to know my younger lighter sister. So for those thinking it doesnt really happen at all. Maybe you just haven't seen it.
I’m American and half of my family is from Trinidad & Tobago. This has happened like twice in my family 😂🥲 My grandmother (White-passing) went to London for university and then moved to the USA and never kept photos of her parents in the house. I knew my grandma’s siblings and cousins but my White cousins (her White grandchildren) did not! It’s getting better now since we’re all meeting each other through recent Family Reunions, but like, thanks grandma for leaving me this mess of internalized racism to take care of.
@Throw away 😅your comment makes no sense. Let's see the statistics you speak of? Women kill and walk away from their children daily no matter where they live or originate.
Tbh the ending COULD have felt like 10% better if they didn't kill her husband. Like maybe potentially it could have sent a message of the trauma internalized racism puts on your family as well with the two viewpoints of the light skin kids who are forced to hide a part of them and the dark skin kids who were abandoned and traumatized in her own erasure of her Blackness. But killing the dad reinforces everything she's feared
I think if he would’ve tested the dad and saved him like he did with the light skinned brother it would’ve proven that he wasn’t crazy or a violent he just has anger. It could’ve shown misplaced anger and how that it can effect someone who is innocent. If he would’ve helped him at the end I would’ve had hope that the kids would be ok and the dad just take them in. But now it’s confusing bc u just killed my dad and now our mom abandoned us…. Just kill me atp.
Her leaving was crazy. I thought I was so so angry at her but did like that the writers doubled down on the fact that she was a shit person. But I don’t know what it did for the story after the invasion was so superficial. It should’ve been scary. It wasn’t. And it was even more annoying as a dark skinned person, I didn’t know who I was rooting for. The movie was a 4 out of 6. Poor acting from the lead, weird storyline and consulted message. And you know what confused me? The fact she said her original husband was abusive at the end but it was the FIRST time it was brought up. She def lied because she just wanted to have a richer life a whiter life. It was so strange. They should’ve given her at least 1 bruise for me to believe her. A better life is a safer life and not all mums bring their children with them - we know she’s shit. But she for real lied. And the older brother and Sebastian’s jumping of the bully, was just… meh.
yea i fully thought the abusive husband was a cop out, otherwise the phonecall with the sister wouldve mentioned/hinted. also an abusive husband wouldve been a random thematic element & also would've played into the wird colourism the movie perpetuates (as he wouldve presumably been a darker skinned man)
It would have made more sense if sometime during the home invasion, there's a knock on the door. The older brother goes "I wonder who that is" and then looks at Cheryl with some type a wicked creepy smile. Then they open the door and it's said abusive husband. Now THAT, might have been a scary twist cos it can go anywhere from there
I feel like the ex was maybe bad with money maybe disappeared for a period of time and repeated the cycle. Also, I don't think her older children were fully in her care. Maybe the sister took them once in a while or Neve made it a habit to place them with her sister for some time as well.
I think the end is supposed to suggest that there was no abusive husband and she just runs from the sheer fear of accountability. It’s all to avoid any sort of inconvenience for her. It definitely feels like a lie to save face and justify her leaving. I think her puking and then putting on a happy face demonstrates this delusion and how we can’t trust anything she says.
I got the sense that Neve's children turned out that way because that's how she _treated_ them. Society told her that blackness is a bad thing, and so she treated them badly, and as a result they became everything society expected them to become. If people tell you over and over and over that you're unwanted and a "thug" and undeserving of love, you start to believe it. That ties into the title of the movie "The Strays". Blackness, particularly dark black people, are often viewed as "too different" in predominantly white societies, and that has systemic consequences. The true tragedy is that if Neve hadn't been so convinced that blackness was a bad thing and raised her children properly, she could've broken the cycle, but she was a victim of society just as much as her children were. Not that I'm making excuses for her in any way, shape, or form, but I think that was the commentary the movie was trying to make.
We live in a world where everything connected to whiteness is good and everything connected to blackness is bad. So Cheryl/Neve felt that in order for her to live a good life, she had to get away from blackness and everything connected with blackness.
Hm, I really don't know much, but is it possible that it is trying to say that even if the "black family" is as "bad" as Neve thought they would be, they didn't deserve what she did to them? And the ending of her leaving, even leaving her "white family" behind, shows how she will only save herself and thus harm everyone else in the process? I really can't tell, but you're right in that it tried to say something, we're just left with trying to figure out what.
That seems as plausible as anything else. The movie seemed to be an indictment of Cheryl/Neve's very flawed character, which...yeah...she's horrible. I think the audience is meant to feel empathy for her kids (especially her black children) because Cheryl/Neve is directly responsible for them being awful. I don't know. It feels like the movie was kinda sorta trying to "Get Out" or "Us" but ultimately the producers were too chickenshit to stand 10 toes down and say "Yeah...let's talk about THIS."
I feel like its trying to say that the black kids ended up that way BECAUSE she left them in poverty with an abuser? Greedy something something cup runneth over Idk
They were left with an aunt, which only leaves them in poverty, which would then imply that poverty makes you a bad person :/ its very confused as a movie whatever way you slice it
Maybe they were trying to say that in her 'disowning' her kids the first time, she 'created' the stereotypes she was afraid of? We can presume that her kids wouldn't have been that way if they didn't have all those hardships growing up. She was the reason for the hardships, she essentially caused the problem? Perpetuated the stereotype by trying to separate herself from her blackness? Honestly I'm too white to fully understand the intricacies and I know I'm watching things through a white lens. The thing that had me the most angry was she was just a bad mother to both sets of kids. The abandoment aside she was clearly allowing her own trauma to negatively impact her kids and she wasn't working on herself in a healthy way. I have severe generational trauma and mother issues, I worked my ass off not to pass that on to my kid. So to see a mother feed into that and then double down on creating trauma made me so damn angry. Neve/Cheryl was the villian for that alone
If that's the case the movie has to be working from the assumption that people, specifically black people, who are abandoned by their parents are more violent. It seems like the film is trying to prove an assumption that is incorrect and racist. The mother's toxicity doesn't go away when she has her second family but somehow her trauma doesn't turn the biracial children violent at all.
This is exactly right. I'm black and I interpreted this movie in the same way. I think it may have just went over a lot of people's heads (I can see why some find it confusing). With that being said, I think the movie did a great job with it's message.
I’m ngl… the way Kennie described it made it sound kinda good to me 😭 Like just as a movie without dissecting it further, the ending is like… damn, that lady is evil!
no fr the ending gagged me. cheryl’s gonna adopt fully white children and try again. i see some issues with the plot being condensed and the racial issues being dumbed down for a nonblack audience but i wanna watch it still.
I think when most people went to see 'Us' they thought it was going to be another 'Get Out', with very obvious overtones and commentary on institutionalized racism and classism. The film was more of an homage to 70's and 80's horror, specifically 'C.H.U.D.'. ...They weren't impressed. I went to see the movie opening week with like six people and I was only one who liked it. 😭
I loved the movie and not really quick to say people who didn't like didn't understand it, but I feel like that's the case here. People went in with the wrong expectations and were thrown off by what actually happened.
I thought it was bomb even though it’s much harder to watch than get out 😢 I haven’t managed to watch nope so not sure but I think Us is horrifyingly good lol
I love "Us" too. I remember hearing Jordan saying it was open to interpretation, but his goal was to just make a standard horror film. I hate that it's so divided because if the people just ignore that it wasn't what they wanted it to be, it's a well-made film. I do like that a lot of people agreed that Lupita should've gotten her flowers though.
@@moyarb Omg her performance alone could have carried the whole movie if it was shit, but I think all the actors did a fantastic job especially they children.
Yeah that’s the point. And that her old life and embarrassing background will creep in. And sometimes that feels like it has nothing to do with blackness because there wasn’t enough context around Black Britishness and poverty - particularly council estates. Which is why her paranoia comes off ass comical because the message isn’t strong enough for acting to be that subtle. So it HAS to be that dramatic so the audience can understand what’s going on. It’s poor directing, acting and writing here.
I’m so happy you did this movie. I wanted to know what it was about, but not enough to watch… even though I still don’t know what it was trying to say. The makeup look is amazing!!! I need a tutorial!!! There were so many nuances with different ways to go with this movie in regards to a main topic, but no direction…i’m lost, but enjoyed the ending because I didn’t expect it.
I think this whole premise could work if the dark skinned children were portrayed as hyper intelligent human beings who were making calculated efforts to drive Neve insane and let the reveal be made at the end instead of impulsive deranged children.
I feel like each one of Jordan Peele's movies are different genres of horror and looking at Nope and past horror movies like it, it makes sense that its the more popular of the three. Get out is more thriller Us is more pure horror And Nope is more of an Adventure Creature horror. Like Jaws. It feels more summer blockbuster and I can see how that appeals more to people. It appeals more to me, mostly because I love OJ and Em's sibling bond and Angel as their silly friend by circumstances. And Jean Jacket is such an interesting creature design
Strongly agree. They’re all different genres and I think that messes with people’s expectations going into each one. I’ve enjoyed all his films thus far.
The fact that this movie is about colorism and they actually made the black kids stereotypically violent and bad is insane. The movie had one saving grace and that is the end when mama did not discriminate and left all them kids 😂
maybe the water continuously could serve as a metaphor for how neve/cheryl is always running from her problems and doesn’t want to acknowledge it and it isn’t until the sink is full (the secrets she kept, spill over and ruin the nice house of lies she’s built)
I'm going to go out on a limb 32:40 and state that perhaps the water is being used as a sort of rebirth. Most the time in movies water symbolizes change and a sort of metaphorisis. She turns off the water because she's already made up her mind that she's about to revamp herself and leave. 😂
This might be a reach but water also undoes certain black hairstyles and makes it long and curly again so it's like the DS kids are unraveling her white conformity
Me and my girlfriend ALMOST watched this movie because we were drunk and were like “hey if it’s bad we can laugh at it!” but then we found something better to watch- and I’m so glad we didn’t because I would’ve gotten so FRUSTRATED
@@hp8685 Yeah my bad, I updated my comment but it's still terribly expensive to the $80 a month I already spend on dog food for all three. One dog should not cost the same for three and we get the best dry food we can with no meat byproducts and other unnecessary crap. It's not the healthiest but it's what we can afford.
2nd comment while watching: it depicts UK middle class colourism very well. It’s weird, but this kinda is how it is. I know people who are like this, family and outside my family.
They should've made this film be about the ghosts of her past following her. The kids would represent the guilt of her leaving them; they would torment her to break the white shell she made to get their mom back. At the end she reaches out to her kids and reconciles with them. This is just a rushed idea but that final scene was funny af
the story sounds like a rough draft, tbh. Writers, if you're trying to play with theme, you need to work out all the implications in subsequent drafts, not get attached to a premise and an ending and then sort of hand-wave the mess in between
I felt this movie was about self preservation. She literally said F them kids TWICE! Annnd…… another thought “dads” do it all the time but it’s unsettling when the mom does it. She’s like the dad who went to get some milk and never came back but make it more dramatic!
I think what this movie was trying to portray was how narcissistic the mother was, not only for her ideals, but how she dealt with her life. Looking at the movie Neve/Cheryl kept looking at the white women in the car commercials on the phone with her sister thinking she was *entitled* to that kind of life. Although abused, the movie didn’t really unpack how that affected how it her, rather who it impacted instead. She abandoned her ex’s children essentially sacrificing them for her to be able to start over. Once she did start over and they started to leak into this new “clean” better life, she attempts to send them away like they asked to be here. And then yet again, even dismissing her husbands concerns when she started to tell the truth, to save herself yet again, she abandons her own children.
As a mixed kid. The end made me feel like they were trying to somehow say like by trying to escape the “blackness” it leaves like generations feeling distant from their roots. Like her black kids didn’t know their mother and like missed out on a feeling being accepted for who they are and understanding who they are. And then by abandoning her mixed kids they are even more confused and distant from their roots and accepting their blackness ect. Like I’m almost 30 and I still never feel white enough for my white family or black enough for my black family. And feel even more distant cause I grew up with my mom who’s white….
I feel distanced from my own blackness and I’m a young dark skinned black girl. I never feel black enough, always being called Oreo or whitewashed just bc of the music I listen to, the way I talk, my friends, people I date & media I enjoy. It’s so tiring
Hey Kennie JD I was wondering if you'd ever review ex's on the beach couples edition? It's super messy and toxic and so much drama you might like it lol
Thank God someone is talking about this movie! I watched it the weekend it came out and was just....so disappointed and a little confused? Like...there's an interesting plot in there, but they haven't used it.
i definitely feel like, it had an idea but it didn’t know how to execute it properly. there’s a lot of elements for a compelling story about racism, colorism, even poverty and hoarding of wealth, but it didn’t flesh out how it wanted to say it; i feel as if cheryl had a lot of potential to work as an unreliable narrator who desperately wants to paint a picture perfect existence and erase her past so the viewer is made to believe her, only to it then be juxtaposed with her two older children coming into the picture, showing what really happened and how cheryl hurt them and abandoned them the first chance she got. the new family, the one with her white husband, feels shallow - it’s clear he loves her, but we never get a good read on if she loves him or is using him as a means to a goal. i think a lot could have been done to show her kids exploring their ancestry outside of carl and deone - or maybe have them no have ulterior motives other than genuinely trying to connect with their half-siblings, it reads as if carl and deone only showed them parts of their race to lure them instead of trying to educate them on what it means to be black. it gives off this, the mixed naive children versus the black manipulative kids which just feels… off. the husband could have had a more supportive role, trying to help neve feel more comfortable doing more “black” things like wearing her natural hair, speaking with her accent, etc. maybe neve interprets it in the wrong way as she’s naturally paranoid and associates blackness and black culture with her past, the one she’s so desperately trying to escape. we could have seen if her partner really was abusive - because honestly? she had lied about so many things up to that reveal that i couldn’t help but really wonder if it was true or if it was an attempt to excuse her actions, who raised her kids, maybe we could have even seen devone and carl’s family life after cheryl left, get a taste of what exactly it is she’s so desperately running away from. instead, cheryl feels incredibly one dimensional, as do the rest of the cast, and it’s a little too easy to see her as a purely evil mother instead of a hurt woman, there was a lot of room for exploration of why she makes the connection black = bad, it’s never really stated - it’s implied it’s got to do with her first family, but what sets her off? the beginning scene makes it seem like the real reason was due to money and lack of funds to sustain a more luxurious lifestyle - could it be that? and her husband’s death feels bland and unnecessary. they seemed to be going for the “she fucked up and yet he has to pay for it” but neve is so vague, her original intentions are so undefined, that it feels like he didn’t need to die - maybe if we saw neve take advantage of him and his trust or have him maybe even discourage and plant the ideas of black = bad onto her - it could feel either really tragic or extremely satisfying. i just feel like, the movie had a good idea and an interesting premise but it was too scared to venture into all the possibilities that the set up had to offer. which is why, in the end, it feels unsatisfying, you don’t connect much with any of the characters and yeah, it’s horrible that neve repeated the cycle at the end showing she never truly learned her lesson, but… what is the lesson? you feel bad for the kids because it’s horrible to lose a parental figure due to their disinterest in yo or if you never understand what it is that made them leave, but that’s it - i feel bad at the end because they’re kids who have lost their mother, some losing her twice while others losing both of their parents, not because i feel any attachment to them as characters.
Passing in the present day still happens. I have a former co-worker who has a biracial half sister who is currently passing as white, her husband has no idea, as her father passed before they meant. Her mother's whole side of the family lies for her... Such self loathing is really... just sad.
And that’s the point. A LOT of the people commenting are either uncomfortable discussing the truth so they either deflect or introduce a new narrative to purposely steer away from the point to avoid feeling guilt about their hidden bias. And the perception continues
The only 2 main dark skinned characters were made to act like animals, unable to process emotions in a productive matter and violent. This couldve been a hit but the writers played into racist stereotypes. Definitely a missed opportunity 😪
The movie wasn’t developed at all and she was married to a lighter skin man so therefore the kids fit the marriage and appearance. The behavior of her other children has nothing to do with color but neglect and mental health issues.
I mean it’s a commentary, right? The point is that black kids don’t naturally play into anti black stereotypes, they were made that way by the abandonment and racism they faced from their family. They could have been more clear with that point sure but I don’t think it’s so easily simplified
I thought (without watching the movie, just watching this video) it was about the literal stray kids left behind. She just keeps walking off when it's not her ideal anymore. And the Strays are left. Living with her decisions. But still... annnd? This seems like a good movie to get mad at 😂 because we don't know. Nobody knows. Neve don't even know.
damn why do i have to relate to the most fucked up movies 💀 my dad did the same thing and literally just a few months ago we found out we have 2 younger siblings. to a hwhite hwoman. im mixed too but my mom isn’t white. he didn’t even tell his family about us, like his mom or siblings. i can really relate to that specific flavor of anger, it’s a hard feeling to come to terms with. i don’t think this was a movie that had protagonists. everything that happened was ultimately because of her poor choices, so maybe it was a divine punishment kind of thing. i wonder if the writer or director has had this experience because i feel like you definitely see it differently that way. it didn’t seem like the kids were violent because they were dark skinned. what she was scared of all along happened, bc she’s just a horrible person lmao- like she made them that way. her abandoning all of them solidifies to me that it was an individual experience. so my take is, if this was written from someone’s personal experience, it made sense. but if you’ve never been through that kind of pain, i don’t think you’d see it that way. there should’ve been more emphasis on the black family’s experience, it does feel colorist making them the villains but not giving them a origin story. it gives the impression that their lives had no impact on the story, they was just kinda there- like at least add a few flashbacks or something. the actor that played carl really did capture those emotions well, it made me want to cry lmao
@@marvelousmia what? your reading comprehension skills need some improvement huh- kennie referred to the two dark skinned children as the black family, so that’s why i called them that. they should’ve shown more of their childhood, instead of just throwing them in there to be the villains. tbh even i can’t tell what you’re trying to say but hope that helps lmao-
@@juno3281 lmfao I’m not going to lie, I skimmed through what you said. I thought you were referring to your experience as the black family experience, but ok I get you.
you put this so well!!!! like this was very insightful to read. i’m so sorry u had to go through that, i can’t imagine that level of complex emotions to process. i’m raised by a single parent (which is ofc very different from the movie and ur situation but) i was def thinking about the difficult feelings of coping with not knowing the other parent while watching this. and their whole situation is so much more complex than that, it really had me thinking abt how traumatized they must be i feel like this movie had so much potential, i was just disappointed with the ending. but i think ur so right about the directors intention likely being “divine justice” like that makes a lotta sense. and if this movie was like all white ppl for example and was just abt some kids getting revenge on their crappy parent, i think ppl would see that more. the racial aspect was just such a big aspect of the movie and the director’s message got kinda lost imo i really wish there was less focus on the abandoned kids being violent and bad influences on her current children, i feel like they had so much more to give development-wise. like their trauma could’ve been explored in a much clearer way. but yea ik ur comment was 7 months ago, it just really had me thinking 😭😭😭
this film felt like it was written by a 16 year old Jordan Peele super fan - like the characterization of Marvin and Abigail was *sooo* unironically antiblack…they literally made them senseless, maniacal, murderous *home invaders* 🤦🏿♀️
I'm surprised to see another person say they weren't into Nope. All my friends are obsessed and keep calling it the greatest movie. I've watched it three times and don't have any feelings about it so I always feel like I'm in the wrong. (I loved US and Get Out)
It seems like the ending maybe means that it didn't matter at all in first place. She blamed her problems on race but it was never about it in the first place.
Exactly this! Hurt people hurt people. The woman created a self fulfilling prophecy around her black kids by abondoning them and using their skin color as justification only to turn around do the same exact thing to her light skinned kids.
I didn’t think all that deep into it, I took her “anti blackness” as her paranoia and guilt (though ima white so) but that movie fucked me up, the 2 Irish goodbyes were inSAIN. I low key wish I could hit my disassociation like that 😅 Also, this ambiguous end is such a Netflix movie thing. They just leave you like…..what.the.fucks?
I didn’t realize I’ve seen clips of the ending, specifically her leaving with the delivery driver. And someone explained in the comments that she’s abandoning her kids AGAIN but they never mentioned the rest, let alone the poor husband dying 😅 like i thought she was cold but ma’am is ice blooded
Год назад+32
OMG i was just thinking about her reviewing this movie last night and BAM here it is lol. This movie was so stupid and it could have been good
honestly they should make the movie you tought it was going to be at the begining of the video; add some Crimson Peak stuff (you're scared of the ghosts but the real ennemy is human kind of deal), and it would be really interesting!
This is exactly how I felt like by the end of it I was like “oh so 😃 you’re just making these dark skinned kids actual villains like?? You want us to fear?? black people by making them as stereotypically bad as you can hm interesting choice” honestly I had to laugh, like I just know they really thought they were doing something…it was one of those films you have to sit there at the end and be like ayo what the hell did I acc just watch 😭
This movie gives the vibes of like someone wrote and directed the first half then a completely different person wrote the second half with bare bones knowledge on the themes of the movie. The first half feels like it is a commentary on race then the second half is a psycho thriller. I think had the movie devolved to neve holding everyone hostage, it would have still been able to stay in line with the themes of the first half. Like the black kids could have just been shown to have clear good intentions and no malice and be stable well adjusted members of society just looking for their mother, forming healthy relationships with the white kids that everyone has to team up to fight psycho neve in the end after she like drugs and holds everyone hostage and stages them in different places in the house. I did cackle at the ending😂😂😂 like she really said fuck them kids, all of them
Thought I was just dumb because I didn’t understand what they were trying to say. My husband was like maybe you’re trying to make it deeper than they intended. I knew I wasn’t crazy!
I really enjoy the movie It kind of lays out colorism, abandonment, being a child left to pretty much fend for themselves in an environment that doesn't help them grow psychologically or emotionally. That's why they wanted to inflict harm on her life all they had was anger because they were never given a normal childhood that they deserved. The ending tho was mad funny.😂
If that's the case the movie has to be working from the assumption that people, specifically black people, who are abandoned by their parents are more violent. It seems like the film is trying to prove an assumption that is incorrect and racist. The mother's toxicity doesn't go away when she has her second family but somehow her trauma doesn't turn the biracial children violent at all.
@@random-dm5md I mean they only show the biracial children for like a few seconds after, I'm sure give it an hour they would have been like okay let's find this b****.😂 But no I'm not meaning that they're violent cuz they're black I mean they're mental illness and unchecked emotions is letting them get to a certain point to where it becomes violent. I'm just throwing my two cents we good I hope. 🤷🏿♀️🤷🏿♀️🤷🏿♀️
@@random-dm5md Also honestly if I was left behind in the ghetto some place and get mistreated and not getting the life I deserve as a child and I get older and find out my mama had a whole ass family when somebody else and ditched who we are for her pretty white washed rich perfect family... I'd be ready to burn a house down.😂 Then again maybe I'm just crazy.👀🤔
idk, it doesn't seem coherant at all lmao, but I wonder if there's an element of, like, a self-fufilling prophecy. the kids wouldn't have turned out like she feared if she hadn't abandonded them because of that fear? also the running water just made it feel like a badly adapted play
After the movie got going in my opinion it was no longer about colorism, but more classism , it was about a woman who was doing everything she could for her old abandoned life not to catch-up with her new life . Her children’s complexion didn’t matter at that point , but they represented “poverty, abuse, and sadness, + more”’ and she left all of it behind … Once the old life caught up she abandoned them all. The story I got at the end ,, “her life is about her , and no one else”. Ole girl will give the deuces ✌🏽, and disappear…period.
I watched this when it first released and I had to pause and call my friends when the she legit panicked at the stick figures cause it was to funny I needed someone else to see this madness
This was WILD! It sounds like it had so much potential but in 17 different ways. It doesn't sound like it's too bad,, very interested in checking it out. I feel like it could work better as a series
U know I loveeeed this move just because I left hating the mother character as I should. This lady does not care about anyone but herself. Like her whole husband died and sis cut. Shut person. Loved the movie!
Why would they make the black people the bad guys? Like what was the purpose and the message? Like yeah, of course when you're abandonned, it can change you for the worse, but it doesn't make you a murderer... damn. 😅😦
I remember watching this movie back in February and at the end being so confused that I told my homegirl - who had moved to England for school 3 years ago - to watch it just so I can talk about this movie to someone😂. One thing I can say, is that this movie did well in making me uncomfortable & anxious....as well as laugh at parts that idk if the movie wanted me to laugh at LOL...But like Kennie said I too was like "what the hell is going on? what is the message?" Cuz if it's supposed to be open to MY interpretation, then welp🤷🏽♀. My homegirl and I kept laughing at the end cuz the mom really said "F*ck Them Kids!" TWICE 🤣 Maybe the running water could represent how the mother will always be running from her Blackness, but I could be reaching & giving the benefit of the doubt when the makers prob just wanted to put something annoying in that we the watcher cannot do anything about until she finally turned it off🙄. But yeah, don't know where this movie is going with their overall message as well...I wonder if they even know.
There a movie on (the ever high quality) Tubi called Doom from 2005. Idk how you feel about sci-fi but this movie delights with a faintly interesting concept that was turned into possibly one of the worst scripts I've ever had the pleasure to laugh at. It also has a cast most of whom you'd recognize and have gone on to do great work, with editing worthy of a Razzie that makes it look like none of them know what they're doing. Absolute Chaos, 10/10
i think its so strange that they portray dion and carl so erratic and as the villains that cheryl/naeve set them up to be all the while portraying lightskin cheryl as calm and calculating rather than HER being the actual villain of the entire movie
The ending made me laugh too lol I was like "this b*tch ain't sh*t thooo" because she wasn't scared of black people. She knew her kids when she saw them she was tryna dodge her kids. Just like some dudes do. Lol
When I saw the notification for this video, I nearly fell off the sofa. I watched this movie earlier this year and was flabbergasted on how much went wrong. Truly, one of the most movies of all time. P.S. This is the first time I watched a bad movie before Kennie😮.
I'm so happy it's Saturday. Somehow the notification that another one of your videos has dropped still manages to surprise me and make my evening unexpectedly better 😊❤
Wasted potential in a movie is always more frustrating than a purely bad movie.
you read my mind lol
omg yes, it had potential because it's bad but I could not stop watching
Absolutely, it's like being edged against your will lol
100%. It's also especially frustrating when a movie was going great until they completely fumbled the ending
Finally someone gets it
I saw her black childrens’ behavior as two underdeveloped kids throwing a tantrum because they want attention from their mother and feel abandoned. But instead of her being a parent and disciplining how she should, she just leaves. I think her character is scared of both blackness and motherhood
hmm her kids are a combo of numerous things. The mental health issues they clearly inherited from their mother and father + the mental health issues they developed from being raised in an abusive home + general fear of abandonment
this is such a good take i was thinking the exact same thing. i think it's a commentary on how a lot of black kids end up acting out because of trauma, not because black people are inherently more prone to delinquency, which a lotttt of racist people believe is the case. the fact that cheryl kept blaming their negative/dangerous behaviors on their blackness instead of blaming it on herself for abandoning and traumatizing them is so telling.
I feel like it's a response to her being abused. Her response to blackness is because it reminds her of her abusive ex. It's kind of like how some black men negatively respond to black women because of the abuse that they experience from their mom
@@sadesuarez2954 i feel she is just a awful person and doesn't like to be accountable for her poor decisions. At no time did she even worry about the younger children when she ran away for the second time. I hope the children hunt her down and get revenge.
She’s scared f responsibility
Ian being killed felt so anticlimactic. He had nothing to do with Cheryl/Neve's past, yet he's the one who has to die.
As a Black person it was dumb. They could’ve had great commentary. They killed him because he was white and I felt like it was a play on our horror trope of dying first and was like pay back of some sort. But he wasn’t a terrible person. He knew NOTHING of the kids, wanted his daughter to be around Black people (albeit he did have some silly comments), told his wife she doesn’t NEED to wear a wig but I guess likes it a certain way (can’t remember if he was like “I like your hair straight). It was a bad decision and actually dragged the movie down because the killing wasn’t even interesting.
I completely agree, very uncalled for.
maybe Ian's death was a metaphor for Niamh(Neev/Cheryl) never faced accountability for her actions. It made sense for him to die as a consequence of her actions to show how Niamh never takes responsibility for things. just my hamfisted take ^-^
@@AndSoWeLaughed they killed gon because they resent the family she built after leaving them. Not just because he’s white
@@AndSoWeLaughedRight. If anything the man was a better person than his wife and didn't need to die. This whole movie frustrates me to know end.
You'd THINK that she'd ask the delivery guy for help... But no, she's clearly learned nothing, and simply abandons all four of her children, two for the second time.
That part left me sitting in silence for like 10 minutes just staring at the wall
I thought that was a good ending… didn’t expect it
@@MsCouve yes!!!! Let’s you know that she didn’t care about any of them, they were just accessories.
Nope. People in customer service go through enough!
I wish I would as a delivery guy be asked to play John Wick when I barely got 2 cents to rub togetha!
Tbh? I loved it bc I love movies where the bad guy wins. Lmaooo she was like naw…. I wanted EASE, not two families 💀
To me they made Dione and Carl unnecessarily violent and “crazy”. Their anger was valid but the way the represented that in the movie, it makes me feel ashamed to show my emotions while being dark skinned? Like they made D & C more into monsters than the dead beat mom honestly….
True. Like this is the perfect scenario for one of those "who they said was the villain / the actual villain" memes bc they make the children seem like the bad guys when they were literally abandoned and likely abused and were rightfully upset at how Cheryl was treating them ://
Edit: it's almost giving "angry black man/woman" stereotype. Which maybe it was meant to be a comment on that? How esp darker skinned black ppl can be seen as crazy or overdramatic or villainous even when they're rightfully angry.
Maybe it would have been interesting if the kids were just hurt and expressing their emotions maybe loudly but appropriately but the mom over reacted and acted like they were crazy and gaslit them. Through the moms over reactions she would cause the death of somebody or something like that. Thoughts?
i dont think its unneceassry i think they were just sick in general even before their mother abandoning them. Imo they had mental health issues they inherited from their mother and father + the mental health issues they developed from being raised in an abusive home + general fear of abandonmen. Being abandoned doesnt create such dangerous "crazy" people. Their mother is sick and their father was clearly sick too considering what he did
Right? That's annoying. Also making the kid kill the innocent husband who happens to be white. Like wtf. is the message of this thing supposed to be
That what I said after I watched it with my family.
It seems like they fed Jordan Peele and Donald Glover's scripts into an AI with no understanding of tone or nuance.
Best comment 😂
The demonization of dark skin people, especially the girl, is very Glover though.
This is exactly what I thought
period
This is too accurate 😂
I feel this movie would be WAY better if Jordan Peele created this movie
I was thinking that too
i was just thinking that
literally he’d take it to the level it needs to be at
Literally, he would have made it worth watching.
No doubt.
As someone who speaks Italian, her name Neve means snow.
You can’t get much whiter than that… I think that was an interesting detail
Wow…
Thats pretty smart?
Hmmm, interesting
Oh she knew the husband was either dead or going to die. She left the kids with their aunt, who’d have to give them back to their apparently abusive father. And she was ready to leave her new children with killers and psychopaths. She’s a weirdo.
Weird and selfish.
Not just a weirdo, a sociopath maybe.
she did know. The moment she realised was when she decided to leave
Clearly her self preservation is bigger than her maternal instincts. She’s got that “well I can always make more.” Mentality.
@@dreamiinotdream730 that part.
This movie gave nothing except a light-skinned BW being afraid of dark-skinned BP including her own 1st set of children that she abandoned unhinged and unnecessarily. Full disappointment.
There could have been SOMETHING idk what exactly but it could've brought perspective. Such a waste.
she was definitely biracial, and irl she would've had way whiter kids than what was portrayed in the movie.. they were mixed like her
@@marvelousmia I completely agree. This is the first comment I heard saying she's biracial. This is why she was able to pass as white in parts of the film. And I was also thinking the same thing about her kids.
@@marvelousmia "she would've had way whiter kids than what was portrayed in the movie" the chances are HIGH that her kids would look more white, but that's not exactly a guarantee with biology/genetics.
The reason Neve/Cheryl’s new friends can’t see the man is because “ThEy DoN’t SeE cOlOr!!”
Best comment I've seen all day!!!
facts
🤣
The ending scene is a running joke between my friend and I everytime there’s a small inconvenience we grab a coat and a wallet and be like “I hope you can forgive me”😭
LMFAO
BYEEEE 😭😭😭
this is soooooo funny
When I watched it I just kept thinking, "this should've been a series instead of a movie". I stand by that because there was so much to unpack and they didn't get deep enough into anything for anything that happened to feel earned or impactful.
I thought the same
One time I'll disagree. What this movie needs is a different writer and director. The concept itself is interesting and could definitely work as a 2 hour movie but the people who made it didn't know what the hell they were doing.
I agree
They could have easily done a 6 episode limited series. First couple episodes where she starts to notice the black influence on her kids/see the man. Episode where it all kicks off at the gala/she tells the white family about what happened. Ep or 2 on her past and what that was like and then ep or 2 with the ending scene.
This movie makes slightly more sense if you view it as “disturbed colourist woman is both the protagonist and villain of this movie and ruins both her families lives”.
I may not have lived in England for decades but the idea that a light skinned Black woman from a council flat can move to another area and magicaly become ensconced of white upper middle class is just bizzare. The idea that you can climb social class with simple hard work is an American concept. Class is a much more rigid concept in England and is extremely white. Example - Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.🎉
Interesting. I’ve always observed England as being more rigidly based in class. Though I never saw it as much race based but legacy based. As in, those who pass their wealth from generations and gatekeep it. Of course England has racism, but I always thought immigrants who also have a legacy (exemple rich Nigerians, Middle Easterners and Asians) can access those higher class spaces in England with less hassle than in America where you can more easily be sanctioned or disadvantaged only for your race, an attestation of a very race based society. Even through “making it with hard work” in America keeps races pretty separated still… Thinking about it, I guess historically England is not a stranger to certain racial/ethnic exclusions. so I suppose it could be a similar thing in England, aside from the fact that most England is white so it reflects on the upper class. Though idk. Thanks for sharing.
My parents were mixed race from the rural middle class families in the Caribbean and part of the first generation mass migration to the "mother country." They were college educated lower middle class when we moved to this side of the Atlantic. The few really wealthy POC in England were indeed wealthy and upper class in their homelands and they are certainly not helping anyone up that ladder in Britain.
America isn't too different, granted I'm from the deep south but I can't tell ypu how many people echoed negativity for Harry "having the nerve to marry a black person despite being royalty".
o.o
It seemed to me that she married into higher society rather than hard work. Her whole gotcha is not doing the work but wanting an easier life i.e living off credit cards, easily abandoned her family & both sets of children at the sign of discomfort/challenge
I think the black kids being unhinged is supposed to be some type of self fulfilling prophecy ish like yes they embody all the negative things that she she fears but it’s not because they’re dark skinned is because their mom abandoned them and they had a traumatic upbringing
Sure, but they still...used dark skinned actors to portray "crazy" violent acting... Like, they could've written the movie to have either "real" (you know what I mean, real in the context of the story) children growing up in this unstable environment and therefore acting out as adults/near adults, or imaginary projections of all Neve/Cheryl's baggage about race, class, motherhood, etc that act according to her fears, or they could've turned it into a free for all fight where it's less "scary Black kids!!!" and more "when they're pushed to their limits everybody acts crazy," even "those 'scary' Black kids have a point, considering the sort of people they're dealing with." But what they actually did was imply that yes, actually, the dark skinned children are as bad as Neve/Cheryl fears.
@@cam4636 i agree it wasn’t well executed
It is still disgusting.
The dark issue is still there. And the socioeconomic issue. She associated those dark children as her poor ugly dark past. The colorism was definitely a factor!
@@JukuduB i wasn’t trying to imply that colorism wasn’t a factor. The mom definitely prefers her light skin children I believe she thinks they are somehow better because of their proximity to whiteness but they’re just privileged kids with resource that the dark skinned children never had.
I think the water running was a symbol of the rising anxiety and pressure coming from each side of her family, especially when she asks to turn the water off, but the guy was like no, showing that he wants her to feel this anxiety and pressure. Only when she was about to leave did she turn the water off, as she found an opportunity to escape the pressure.
i also think it was symbolic of how she's always running away, just a thought
@@cancelia1 trueeeee
This is exactly what I thought! Neve/Cheryl was the "victim" the whole movie but really she held all the power to fix things or makes them worse.
@@cancelia1 not to sound like a swiftie but you could say she was leaving like a father, running like water.
Ahhh, I was looking for a reason for the running water, but this makes a whole lot of sense.
It would make more sense as a movie if her husband, kids and those around her didn’t know she was black, so her blackness haunting her and her fear of her kids blackness showing would pull it together more.
That’s would’ve been a interesting concept
We have a million passing stories like that though. As someone who used to be like her (in attitude as a teen, I didn’t abandon any children lol), this is a topic that often goes ignored. There are light skinned people who want to escape blackness and any association causes a breakdown.
Edit: I’m specifically talking about light skin black women and biracial black women who are not white enough to pass but have all the “right” ambiguous features to be considered the beauty standard within the black community (loose hair texture, “high yellow” skin etc.). We too often speak about people who can fully pass and not the people who resent the fact that they can’t pass that like to use their blackness when it is convenient.
Kind of like the move "Passing". And that would play better if it took place in the past
That's just the novel Passing by Nella Larsen which is much more complex.
This, like if this movie was set/based on a story around a light skinned black woman passing in the past would be a better way to illustrate the point they wanted to get across I think.
(Though I say this and I think Netflix had another release with that concept called Passing but it was also poorly done. It was about 2 black women, one that could pass as white and the other living her life as the average black woman of the time. They were childhood friends, and bump into one another unexpectedly.) If Kennie wanted that could be added to the list for bad movies and a beat lol.
Honestly her just getting her purse and walking out the door at the end was iconic. Most of the rest of the movie seemed jumbled and weird but just getting her purse and "calmly" leaving was 10/10. It perfectly showed what her priority was (her stepford wife like put together image and casting away ANYTHING that didn't fit it).
In the end, Cheryl/Neve didn’t get the right milk on her first trip and had to run back to the store real quick 😂
Yeah, she needed oat milk this time 😂😂😂😂
🤣🤣🤣
A few of my family members would encourage me to not date darker people so my kids wouldn't be dark. Colorism is so dumb. Being black you have a chance of have either dark or light kids because of genetics just because you go light and light it doesn't eliminate the chance of having darker kids. My husband is dark and people were saying things like you're kids are going to have it hard they're going to have bad hair they won't have any confidence because they're dark. It's crazy.
Wtf 😬
I've gotten comments like that from my family and I HATE that shit. The blame for the colorism your children may face is placed on you for having them and on them for existing, rather than on the bigots who shame them for existing or a society that deems darker skin as lesser.
Why is it "make sure your kids aren't too dark their lives will be harder" and not "stop making life harder for dark-skinned kids"?
Literally. Mixed people CAN have darkskin. My siblings and I are all DIFFERENT colors, my baby sister being a deep dark and my older sister being the vanilla. We're all mixed (black and indigenous). When it comes to genetics it's a guessing game. You really don't know what your baby is gonna look like.
Also this "dark people with bad hair" is ignorant as well. Not only is there no such thing as "bad hair" it's also doesn't have as much to do with your skin color as people think it does. I'd consider myself darkskin in the summer and my mom is very darkskin and we both have type 3c 4a hair, while my older sister has type 4b.
The self hate in those people is insane... They haven't been around enough dark-skinned black people bc there are plenty with gorgeous natural hair and confidence to discredit all of that
The character/actress is mixed race. Yes mixed race + white CAN result in a "tanned" child (talking caramel) but thats rare af especially if the mixed parents black side is from the new world. The chances of a mixed + white family having a pale af child is much higher than a mixed + black family having an extremely dark child. Not saying it CANT happen, but its not as common, that child will more likely come out "brownskin" than extremely dark meanwhile mixed + white can create the whitest looking child ever or sometimes even mixed + mixed can too lol and colorist people know this which is why they push for anything that will MORE LIKELY give you a racially ambiguious, mixed or white child. E.g. the racist members of my family will "risk" a mixed person getting with a black person but they wont "risk" a black person getting with another black person.
I have a friend who isnt even afro latino but has a similar rule in her family because of her racist black african granddad that did the same. His black daughter wasnt allowed to get with a black man because he didnt want black grandkids (she still did though without his approval lol) but his mixed race kids were allowed to get with black men because those kids would not be fully or look "that black". To this day he doesnt care about my friend (his black non mixed grandkid) because she looks west african, by that i mean eventhough she isnt darkskin she has west african features (features of her tribe) vs his other grandkids who vary from extremely lightskin to brownskin but have racially ambiguous features.
I don't know if the writer and director WANT us to view Sheryl/Neve as the villain and her kids and their actions as sympathetic and understandable given their mom just abandoned and replaced them, but that's how I felt about it? Could be my own mommy issues jumping out, but damn I was mad at her. Her ability to mistreat and discard anyone who didn't serve her goal of increasing her proximity to whiteness as much as possible was chilling.
I think that was the intention, and it kinda works up until the end but killing an innocent person just made them the villains imo,
omg yes my thoughts exactly down to the mommy issues lol
Don't worry, I don't have any mommy issues and I was fully seething by the end too, lol.
I’m trying to imagine a teenager in 2023 owning a Lil Wayne poster & it’s just not registering lol.
i just think it was a *poor* attempt of the producer to portray the son trying to be in touch with his blackness. like, just stereotypical components of being black. i.e rap and hip hop and such.
LMAO every inch of this movie is a miss. Ik he’s corny, but at least Drake would make a little more sense
@@ritchieashley8843 this movie would be far better if the BLACK children were also super light skin and were ultimate black stereotypes to try and be in touch with or whatever. It could've ended with them telling neve they did it cause the white children a d people around them never saw them as nonblack. And somehow a dark skinned person is there and is killed by neve. Anyway, almost anything would've been better than this.
right lol😅
@@alltheworldatmyfeet I think that’s what they were trying to do with the braids and all that, but they didn’t go fully in. The movie also blamed all that on the black children, which felt weird to me
Ok im from the Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago specifically, and what that mother did did not surprise me. Its a common enough story here especially back in the day. Hell, my father's mother literally dropped him snd my aunt by their grandmother and went off to America got remarried to a whiteman and had two white passing sons and barely spoke to her first to her first 2 clearly black children. I met her around 14-15 and for tge most part she barely interacted with me, her first grandchild, yet made strides to know my younger lighter sister. So for those thinking it doesnt really happen at all. Maybe you just haven't seen it.
I’m American and half of my family is from Trinidad & Tobago. This has happened like twice in my family 😂🥲 My grandmother (White-passing) went to London for university and then moved to the USA and never kept photos of her parents in the house. I knew my grandma’s siblings and cousins but my White cousins (her White grandchildren) did not! It’s getting better now since we’re all meeting each other through recent Family Reunions, but like, thanks grandma for leaving me this mess of internalized racism to take care of.
Outside of Trinidad and Tobago, it's not to common to see mothers abandon their children like that and they're usually demonized for doing so.
Colorism is one heck of a drug
@Throw away 😅your comment makes no sense. Let's see the statistics you speak of? Women kill and walk away from their children daily no matter where they live or originate.
"An itch in her kitchen" pretty much sums up black intuition! That's so funny! 😩😂
Tbh the ending COULD have felt like 10% better if they didn't kill her husband. Like maybe potentially it could have sent a message of the trauma internalized racism puts on your family as well with the two viewpoints of the light skin kids who are forced to hide a part of them and the dark skin kids who were abandoned and traumatized in her own erasure of her Blackness. But killing the dad reinforces everything she's feared
Yeah me too, if they stopped torture and went after cheryl instead it could've kinda worked
I think if he would’ve tested the dad and saved him like he did with the light skinned brother it would’ve proven that he wasn’t crazy or a violent he just has anger. It could’ve shown misplaced anger and how that it can effect someone who is innocent. If he would’ve helped him at the end I would’ve had hope that the kids would be ok and the dad just take them in. But now it’s confusing bc u just killed my dad and now our mom abandoned us…. Just kill me atp.
Like wtf we finna do hold hands like what?!?
Her leaving was crazy. I thought I was so so angry at her but did like that the writers doubled down on the fact that she was a shit person. But I don’t know what it did for the story after the invasion was so superficial. It should’ve been scary. It wasn’t. And it was even more annoying as a dark skinned person, I didn’t know who I was rooting for. The movie was a 4 out of 6. Poor acting from the lead, weird storyline and consulted message.
And you know what confused me? The fact she said her original husband was abusive at the end but it was the FIRST time it was brought up. She def lied because she just wanted to have a richer life a whiter life. It was so strange. They should’ve given her at least 1 bruise for me to believe her. A better life is a safer life and not all mums bring their children with them - we know she’s shit. But she for real lied. And the older brother and Sebastian’s jumping of the bully, was just… meh.
yea i fully thought the abusive husband was a cop out, otherwise the phonecall with the sister wouldve mentioned/hinted. also an abusive husband wouldve been a random thematic element & also would've played into the wird colourism the movie perpetuates (as he wouldve presumably been a darker skinned man)
It would have made more sense if sometime during the home invasion, there's a knock on the door.
The older brother goes "I wonder who that is" and then looks at Cheryl with some type a wicked creepy smile.
Then they open the door and it's said abusive husband. Now THAT, might have been a scary twist cos it can go anywhere from there
I feel like the ex was maybe bad with money maybe disappeared for a period of time and repeated the cycle. Also, I don't think her older children were fully in her care. Maybe the sister took them once in a while or Neve made it a habit to place them with her sister for some time as well.
@@danielbriggz the plot we deserved
I think the end is supposed to suggest that there was no abusive husband and she just runs from the sheer fear of accountability. It’s all to avoid any sort of inconvenience for her. It definitely feels like a lie to save face and justify her leaving. I think her puking and then putting on a happy face demonstrates this delusion and how we can’t trust anything she says.
I got the sense that Neve's children turned out that way because that's how she _treated_ them. Society told her that blackness is a bad thing, and so she treated them badly, and as a result they became everything society expected them to become. If people tell you over and over and over that you're unwanted and a "thug" and undeserving of love, you start to believe it. That ties into the title of the movie "The Strays". Blackness, particularly dark black people, are often viewed as "too different" in predominantly white societies, and that has systemic consequences. The true tragedy is that if Neve hadn't been so convinced that blackness was a bad thing and raised her children properly, she could've broken the cycle, but she was a victim of society just as much as her children were. Not that I'm making excuses for her in any way, shape, or form, but I think that was the commentary the movie was trying to make.
Key word: SOCIETY. Who is that?..
We live in a world where everything connected to whiteness is good and everything connected to blackness is bad. So Cheryl/Neve felt that in order for her to live a good life, she had to get away from blackness and everything connected with blackness.
Hm, I really don't know much, but is it possible that it is trying to say that even if the "black family" is as "bad" as Neve thought they would be, they didn't deserve what she did to them? And the ending of her leaving, even leaving her "white family" behind, shows how she will only save herself and thus harm everyone else in the process? I really can't tell, but you're right in that it tried to say something, we're just left with trying to figure out what.
That seems as plausible as anything else. The movie seemed to be an indictment of Cheryl/Neve's very flawed character, which...yeah...she's horrible. I think the audience is meant to feel empathy for her kids (especially her black children) because Cheryl/Neve is directly responsible for them being awful. I don't know. It feels like the movie was kinda sorta trying to "Get Out" or "Us" but ultimately the producers were too chickenshit to stand 10 toes down and say "Yeah...let's talk about THIS."
That's a good point
I feel like its trying to say that the black kids ended up that way BECAUSE she left them in poverty with an abuser? Greedy something something cup runneth over Idk
They were left with an aunt, which only leaves them in poverty, which would then imply that poverty makes you a bad person :/ its very confused as a movie whatever way you slice it
i like this reading
Maybe they were trying to say that in her 'disowning' her kids the first time, she 'created' the stereotypes she was afraid of? We can presume that her kids wouldn't have been that way if they didn't have all those hardships growing up. She was the reason for the hardships, she essentially caused the problem? Perpetuated the stereotype by trying to separate herself from her blackness?
Honestly I'm too white to fully understand the intricacies and I know I'm watching things through a white lens. The thing that had me the most angry was she was just a bad mother to both sets of kids. The abandoment aside she was clearly allowing her own trauma to negatively impact her kids and she wasn't working on herself in a healthy way. I have severe generational trauma and mother issues, I worked my ass off not to pass that on to my kid. So to see a mother feed into that and then double down on creating trauma made me so damn angry. Neve/Cheryl was the villian for that alone
If that's the case the movie has to be working from the assumption that people, specifically black people, who are abandoned by their parents are more violent. It seems like the film is trying to prove an assumption that is incorrect and racist. The mother's toxicity doesn't go away when she has her second family but somehow her trauma doesn't turn the biracial children violent at all.
This is exactly right. I'm black and I interpreted this movie in the same way. I think it may have just went over a lot of people's heads (I can see why some find it confusing). With that being said, I think the movie did a great job with it's message.
All of that and she got away with the delivery driver. Aye, she said fuck this, I'm out.
She had her wallet too, so you know she ain't coming back.
I’m ngl… the way Kennie described it made it sound kinda good to me 😭 Like just as a movie without dissecting it further, the ending is like… damn, that lady is evil!
no fr the ending gagged me. cheryl’s gonna adopt fully white children and try again. i see some issues with the plot being condensed and the racial issues being dumbed down for a nonblack audience but i wanna watch it still.
I kinda wanna watch this movie too because of how Kennie described it.
@@serenatsukino5252you should, its interesting
Kennie talking about cats in the intro when the title is called the strays… I’m sorry but that made me laugh 😂😂😂
I think when most people went to see 'Us' they thought it was going to be another 'Get Out', with very obvious overtones and commentary on institutionalized racism and classism. The film was more of an homage to 70's and 80's horror, specifically 'C.H.U.D.'. ...They weren't impressed. I went to see the movie opening week with like six people and I was only one who liked it. 😭
I loved the movie and not really quick to say people who didn't like didn't understand it, but I feel like that's the case here. People went in with the wrong expectations and were thrown off by what actually happened.
I thought it was bomb even though it’s much harder to watch than get out 😢 I haven’t managed to watch nope so not sure but I think Us is horrifyingly good lol
I love "Us" too. I remember hearing Jordan saying it was open to interpretation, but his goal was to just make a standard horror film. I hate that it's so divided because if the people just ignore that it wasn't what they wanted it to be, it's a well-made film. I do like that a lot of people agreed that Lupita should've gotten her flowers though.
@@moyarb Omg her performance alone could have carried the whole movie if it was shit, but I think all the actors did a fantastic job especially they children.
@@blueismylove3128 Omg yes! The children had to play two roles too.
this movie is like when a good cohesive movie gets a terrible sequel that totally ruins the point of the first one….. but it’s ONE MOVIE
😂😂😂. THAT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN BETTER SAID
Neve is soooo paranoid, I think she is always at attention with anything black because she thinks that her façade will come crumbling down
Yeah that’s the point. And that her old life and embarrassing background will creep in. And sometimes that feels like it has nothing to do with blackness because there wasn’t enough context around Black Britishness and poverty - particularly council estates. Which is why her paranoia comes off ass comical because the message isn’t strong enough for acting to be that subtle. So it HAS to be that dramatic so the audience can understand what’s going on. It’s poor directing, acting and writing here.
@@AndSoWeLaughed I totally agree . I hadn’t seen this movie before so I was so puzzled with the direction
I’m so happy you did this movie. I wanted to know what it was about, but not enough to watch… even though I still don’t know what it was trying to say. The makeup look is amazing!!! I need a tutorial!!! There were so many nuances with different ways to go with this movie in regards to a main topic, but no direction…i’m lost, but enjoyed the ending because I didn’t expect it.
I think this whole premise could work if the dark skinned children were portrayed as hyper intelligent human beings who were making calculated efforts to drive Neve insane and let the reveal be made at the end instead of impulsive deranged children.
I feel like each one of Jordan Peele's movies are different genres of horror and looking at Nope and past horror movies like it, it makes sense that its the more popular of the three.
Get out is more thriller
Us is more pure horror
And Nope is more of an Adventure Creature horror. Like Jaws. It feels more summer blockbuster and I can see how that appeals more to people. It appeals more to me, mostly because I love OJ and Em's sibling bond and Angel as their silly friend by circumstances. And Jean Jacket is such an interesting creature design
Strongly agree. They’re all different genres and I think that messes with people’s expectations going into each one. I’ve enjoyed all his films thus far.
People's problem I that thy try to view Jordan's movies under the same umbrella....which is their problem cause his movies are good
Jordan's films are wonderful for that very reason too, it's literally different strokes for different folks, and he's got all the flavours
The fact that this movie is about colorism and they actually made the black kids stereotypically violent and bad is insane. The movie had one saving grace and that is the end when mama did not discriminate and left all them kids 😂
That was the plot twist. She IS the stereotype she feared and despised the most
maybe the water continuously could serve as a metaphor for how neve/cheryl is always running from her problems and doesn’t want to acknowledge it and it isn’t until the sink is full (the secrets she kept, spill over and ruin the nice house of lies she’s built)
I'm going to go out on a limb 32:40 and state that perhaps the water is being used as a sort of rebirth. Most the time in movies water symbolizes change and a sort of metaphorisis. She turns off the water because she's already made up her mind that she's about to revamp herself and leave. 😂
This might be a reach but water also undoes certain black hairstyles and makes it long and curly again so it's like the DS kids are unraveling her white conformity
@Abby Wolffe omg love this detail. Bet you it never occurred to these writers!
Me and my girlfriend ALMOST watched this movie because we were drunk and were like “hey if it’s bad we can laugh at it!” but then we found something better to watch- and I’m so glad we didn’t because I would’ve gotten so FRUSTRATED
I love that kennie got a bag from human food and dog food.
💰💰💰💰
For anyone interested the dog food is like $500 a month for three medium size dogs, so if you have multiple pets it's not the best option.
@@estebanjulioricardomontoya Oops yeah that matters too. I forgot to mention I have three dogs, 66, 62 and 40lbs each.
@@blueismylove3128 loll that's very relevant information
@@hp8685 Yeah my bad, I updated my comment but it's still terribly expensive to the $80 a month I already spend on dog food for all three. One dog should not cost the same for three and we get the best dry food we can with no meat byproducts and other unnecessary crap. It's not the healthiest but it's what we can afford.
I just want everyone to know that I’m the Twitter user in question lmao Kennie you definitely did not disappoint 😂
Thank you. 😂😂😂
2nd comment while watching: it depicts UK middle class colourism very well. It’s weird, but this kinda is how it is. I know people who are like this, family and outside my family.
They should've made this film be about the ghosts of her past following her. The kids would represent the guilt of her leaving them; they would torment her to break the white shell she made to get their mom back. At the end she reaches out to her kids and reconciles with them. This is just a rushed idea but that final scene was funny af
the story sounds like a rough draft, tbh. Writers, if you're trying to play with theme, you need to work out all the implications in subsequent drafts, not get attached to a premise and an ending and then sort of hand-wave the mess in between
I felt this movie was about self preservation. She literally said F them kids TWICE! Annnd…… another thought “dads” do it all the time but it’s unsettling when the mom does it. She’s like the dad who went to get some milk and never came back but make it more dramatic!
Yes! Someone gets it! Lol
"Karen with a tan" girl I chocked 😭
this is what ashley is doing with her career? SIS YOU PLAYED TITUBA! get a new agent
i saw this movie when it first released, it tried its hardest to be good but it failed so miserably. i laughed a little bit during that ending 😭
I think what this movie was trying to portray was how narcissistic the mother was, not only for her ideals, but how she dealt with her life.
Looking at the movie Neve/Cheryl kept looking at the white women in the car commercials on the phone with her sister thinking she was *entitled* to that kind of life. Although abused, the movie didn’t really unpack how that affected how it her, rather who it impacted instead. She abandoned her ex’s children essentially sacrificing them for her to be able to start over.
Once she did start over and they started to leak into this new “clean” better life, she attempts to send them away like they asked to be here. And then yet again, even dismissing her husbands concerns when she started to tell the truth, to save herself yet again, she abandons her own children.
TLDR; Fuck Cheryl all my homies hate Cheryl
That fact some of the scenes were genuinely very tense almost makes it’s jumbled message more infuriating. Like, you clearly had SOMETHING here
I think the water running was a play on words because all Cheryl does is run.
Yup, that's what I got out of it too.
I believe it was vandalism and two disgruntled children throwing a tantrum and destroying her home
As a mixed kid. The end made me feel like they were trying to somehow say like by trying to escape the “blackness” it leaves like generations feeling distant from their roots. Like her black kids didn’t know their mother and like missed out on a feeling being accepted for who they are and understanding who they are. And then by abandoning her mixed kids they are even more confused and distant from their roots and accepting their blackness ect. Like I’m almost 30 and I still never feel white enough for my white family or black enough for my black family. And feel even more distant cause I grew up with my mom who’s white….
I felt the exact same way and saw the same interpretation.
I feel distanced from my own blackness and I’m a young dark skinned black girl. I never feel black enough, always being called Oreo or whitewashed just bc of the music I listen to, the way I talk, my friends, people I date & media I enjoy. It’s so tiring
@@trxphywaifaltOmg. Ikk. Im dark skin too and apparently being really nice and emphatic is white. Or having a slumber party at my sisters 😐
Omg YES! I watched this movie and it was…….. and I had no one to talk to about this mess 😭
Hey Kennie JD I was wondering if you'd ever review ex's on the beach couples edition? It's super messy and toxic and so much drama you might like it lol
omg i loveee that show
@@TeddyLovesAxl it's on hulu
@@sydneyt1204 isn't it horribly good? Lol😂😂
@@TeddyLovesAxl well this person is giving her money so its more of an incentive now
@@growinghigher420 Gotcha 👍🏻 Thanks *downloads Hulu*
Thank God someone is talking about this movie! I watched it the weekend it came out and was just....so disappointed and a little confused? Like...there's an interesting plot in there, but they haven't used it.
i definitely feel like, it had an idea but it didn’t know how to execute it properly. there’s a lot of elements for a compelling story about racism, colorism, even poverty and hoarding of wealth, but it didn’t flesh out how it wanted to say it; i feel as if cheryl had a lot of potential to work as an unreliable narrator who desperately wants to paint a picture perfect existence and erase her past so the viewer is made to believe her, only to it then be juxtaposed with her two older children coming into the picture, showing what really happened and how cheryl hurt them and abandoned them the first chance she got.
the new family, the one with her white husband, feels shallow - it’s clear he loves her, but we never get a good read on if she loves him or is using him as a means to a goal. i think a lot could have been done to show her kids exploring their ancestry outside of carl and deone - or maybe have them no have ulterior motives other than genuinely trying to connect with their half-siblings, it reads as if carl and deone only showed them parts of their race to lure them instead of trying to educate them on what it means to be black. it gives off this, the mixed naive children versus the black manipulative kids which just feels… off.
the husband could have had a more supportive role, trying to help neve feel more comfortable doing more “black” things like wearing her natural hair, speaking with her accent, etc.
maybe neve interprets it in the wrong way as she’s naturally paranoid and associates blackness and black culture with her past, the one she’s so desperately trying to escape.
we could have seen if her partner really was abusive - because honestly? she had lied about so many things up to that reveal that i couldn’t help but really wonder if it was true or if it was an attempt to excuse her actions, who raised her kids, maybe we could have even seen devone and carl’s family life after cheryl left, get a taste of what exactly it is she’s so desperately running away from.
instead, cheryl feels incredibly one dimensional, as do the rest of the cast, and it’s a little too easy to see her as a purely evil mother instead of a hurt woman, there was a lot of room for exploration of why she makes the connection black = bad, it’s never really stated - it’s implied it’s got to do with her first family, but what sets her off? the beginning scene makes it seem like the real reason was due to money and lack of funds to sustain a more luxurious lifestyle - could it be that?
and her husband’s death feels bland and unnecessary. they seemed to be going for the “she fucked up and yet he has to pay for it” but neve is so vague, her original intentions are so undefined, that it feels like he didn’t need to die - maybe if we saw neve take advantage of him and his trust or have him maybe even discourage and plant the ideas of black = bad onto her - it could feel either really tragic or extremely satisfying.
i just feel like, the movie had a good idea and an interesting premise but it was too scared to venture into all the possibilities that the set up had to offer. which is why, in the end, it feels unsatisfying, you don’t connect much with any of the characters and yeah, it’s horrible that neve repeated the cycle at the end showing she never truly learned her lesson, but… what is the lesson? you feel bad for the kids because it’s horrible to lose a parental figure due to their disinterest in yo or if you never understand what it is that made them leave, but that’s it - i feel bad at the end because they’re kids who have lost their mother, some losing her twice while others losing both of their parents, not because i feel any attachment to them as characters.
Passing in the present day still happens.
I have a former co-worker who has a biracial half sister who is currently passing as white, her husband has no idea, as her father passed before they meant. Her mother's whole side of the family lies for her...
Such self loathing is really... just sad.
I mean, if you could escape racism, why wouldn't you?
And that’s the point. A LOT of the people commenting are either uncomfortable discussing the truth so they either deflect or introduce a new narrative to purposely steer away from the point to avoid feeling guilt about their hidden bias. And the perception continues
The only 2 main dark skinned characters were made to act like animals, unable to process emotions in a productive matter and violent. This couldve been a hit but the writers played into racist stereotypes. Definitely a missed opportunity 😪
The movie wasn’t developed at all and she was married to a lighter skin man so therefore the kids fit the marriage and appearance. The behavior of her other children has nothing to do with color but neglect and mental health issues.
I mean it’s a commentary, right? The point is that black kids don’t naturally play into anti black stereotypes, they were made that way by the abandonment and racism they faced from their family. They could have been more clear with that point sure but I don’t think it’s so easily simplified
I loved the oldest brother actor! His performance was everything for me throughout this entire unfulfilled thought project.
MUTHHAAAA!!!!
I thought (without watching the movie, just watching this video) it was about the literal stray kids left behind. She just keeps walking off when it's not her ideal anymore. And the Strays are left. Living with her decisions. But still... annnd? This seems like a good movie to get mad at 😂 because we don't know. Nobody knows. Neve don't even know.
i feel like it almost was an amazing movie. like with better writers this movie could’ve been amazing
damn why do i have to relate to the most fucked up movies 💀 my dad did the same thing and literally just a few months ago we found out we have 2 younger siblings. to a hwhite hwoman. im mixed too but my mom isn’t white. he didn’t even tell his family about us, like his mom or siblings. i can really relate to that specific flavor of anger, it’s a hard feeling to come to terms with.
i don’t think this was a movie that had protagonists. everything that happened was ultimately because of her poor choices, so maybe it was a divine punishment kind of thing. i wonder if the writer or director has had this experience because i feel like you definitely see it differently that way. it didn’t seem like the kids were violent because they were dark skinned. what she was scared of all along happened, bc she’s just a horrible person lmao- like she made them that way. her abandoning all of them solidifies to me that it was an individual experience. so my take is, if this was written from someone’s personal experience, it made sense. but if you’ve never been through that kind of pain, i don’t think you’d see it that way.
there should’ve been more emphasis on the black family’s experience, it does feel colorist making them the villains but not giving them a origin story. it gives the impression that their lives had no impact on the story, they was just kinda there- like at least add a few flashbacks or something. the actor that played carl really did capture those emotions well, it made me want to cry lmao
That’s so awful. And I agree with what you said about connecting emotionally to the movie.
kids your black father has with none black women isn't the "black families experience"
@@marvelousmia what? your reading comprehension skills need some improvement huh- kennie referred to the two dark skinned children as the black family, so that’s why i called them that. they should’ve shown more of their childhood, instead of just throwing them in there to be the villains. tbh even i can’t tell what you’re trying to say but hope that helps lmao-
@@juno3281 lmfao I’m not going to lie, I skimmed through what you said. I thought you were referring to your experience as the black family experience, but ok I get you.
you put this so well!!!! like this was very insightful to read. i’m so sorry u had to go through that, i can’t imagine that level of complex emotions to process. i’m raised by a single parent (which is ofc very different from the movie and ur situation but) i was def thinking about the difficult feelings of coping with not knowing the other parent while watching this. and their whole situation is so much more complex than that, it really had me thinking abt how traumatized they must be
i feel like this movie had so much potential, i was just disappointed with the ending. but i think ur so right about the directors intention likely being “divine justice” like that makes a lotta sense. and if this movie was like all white ppl for example and was just abt some kids getting revenge on their crappy parent, i think ppl would see that more. the racial aspect was just such a big aspect of the movie and the director’s message got kinda lost imo
i really wish there was less focus on the abandoned kids being violent and bad influences on her current children, i feel like they had so much more to give development-wise. like their trauma could’ve been explored in a much clearer way. but yea ik ur comment was 7 months ago, it just really had me thinking 😭😭😭
this film felt like it was written by a 16 year old Jordan Peele super fan - like the characterization of Marvin and Abigail was *sooo* unironically antiblack…they literally made them senseless, maniacal, murderous *home invaders* 🤦🏿♀️
I'm surprised to see another person say they weren't into Nope. All my friends are obsessed and keep calling it the greatest movie. I've watched it three times and don't have any feelings about it so I always feel like I'm in the wrong. (I loved US and Get Out)
Can confirm nope is a shitty movie and the people only like it for the hipe
It seems like the ending maybe means that it didn't matter at all in first place. She blamed her problems on race but it was never about it in the first place.
Exactly this! Hurt people hurt people. The woman created a self fulfilling prophecy around her black kids by abondoning them and using their skin color as justification only to turn around do the same exact thing to her light skinned kids.
Kenny please do Zombie Stripper. It’s literally morbid 😂
This comment now made me want to suggest Kennie doing a video on Deadgirl but also I wonder of that movie would fuck her up
I didn’t think all that deep into it, I took her “anti blackness” as her paranoia and guilt (though ima white so) but that movie fucked me up, the 2 Irish goodbyes were inSAIN.
I low key wish I could hit my disassociation like that 😅
Also, this ambiguous end is such a Netflix movie thing. They just leave you like…..what.the.fucks?
White people tend to overlook colorism tbh
About Nope, Nope made me feel like I was watching something I was not supposed to see. It was creepy and charming and that’s my jam
I didn’t realize I’ve seen clips of the ending, specifically her leaving with the delivery driver. And someone explained in the comments that she’s abandoning her kids AGAIN but they never mentioned the rest, let alone the poor husband dying 😅 like i thought she was cold but ma’am is ice blooded
OMG i was just thinking about her reviewing this movie last night and BAM here it is lol. This movie was so stupid and it could have been good
honestly they should make the movie you tought it was going to be at the begining of the video; add some Crimson Peak stuff (you're scared of the ghosts but the real ennemy is human kind of deal), and it would be really interesting!
This is exactly how I felt like by the end of it I was like “oh so 😃 you’re just making these dark skinned kids actual villains like?? You want us to fear?? black people by making them as stereotypically bad as you can hm interesting choice”
honestly I had to laugh, like I just know they really thought they were doing something…it was one of those films you have to sit there at the end and be like ayo what the hell did I acc just watch 😭
This movie gives the vibes of like someone wrote and directed the first half then a completely different person wrote the second half with bare bones knowledge on the themes of the movie. The first half feels like it is a commentary on race then the second half is a psycho thriller. I think had the movie devolved to neve holding everyone hostage, it would have still been able to stay in line with the themes of the first half. Like the black kids could have just been shown to have clear good intentions and no malice and be stable well adjusted members of society just looking for their mother, forming healthy relationships with the white kids that everyone has to team up to fight psycho neve in the end after she like drugs and holds everyone hostage and stages them in different places in the house.
I did cackle at the ending😂😂😂 like she really said fuck them kids, all of them
Thought I was just dumb because I didn’t understand what they were trying to say. My husband was like maybe you’re trying to make it deeper than they intended. I knew I wasn’t crazy!
I really enjoy the movie It kind of lays out colorism, abandonment, being a child left to pretty much fend for themselves in an environment that doesn't help them grow psychologically or emotionally. That's why they wanted to inflict harm on her life all they had was anger because they were never given a normal childhood that they deserved. The ending tho was mad funny.😂
If that's the case the movie has to be working from the assumption that people, specifically black people, who are abandoned by their parents are more violent. It seems like the film is trying to prove an assumption that is incorrect and racist. The mother's toxicity doesn't go away when she has her second family but somehow her trauma doesn't turn the biracial children violent at all.
@@random-dm5md I mean they only show the biracial children for like a few seconds after, I'm sure give it an hour they would have been like okay let's find this b****.😂 But no I'm not meaning that they're violent cuz they're black I mean they're mental illness and unchecked emotions is letting them get to a certain point to where it becomes violent. I'm just throwing my two cents we good I hope. 🤷🏿♀️🤷🏿♀️🤷🏿♀️
@@random-dm5md Also honestly if I was left behind in the ghetto some place and get mistreated and not getting the life I deserve as a child and I get older and find out my mama had a whole ass family when somebody else and ditched who we are for her pretty white washed rich perfect family... I'd be ready to burn a house down.😂 Then again maybe I'm just crazy.👀🤔
Nope is DEFINITELY something you need to watch more than once! I've seen it 5 times and notice something new each time I watch it
idk, it doesn't seem coherant at all lmao, but I wonder if there's an element of, like, a self-fufilling prophecy. the kids wouldn't have turned out like she feared if she hadn't abandonded them because of that fear? also the running water just made it feel like a badly adapted play
Wait, that delivery man just accepted that the lady ditch her home and family with him?!? With his vehicle?!??? 🤣😭💀 WILD
She PAID him 😂😂
After the movie got going in my opinion it was no longer about colorism, but more classism , it was about a woman who was doing everything she could for her old abandoned life not to catch-up with her new life . Her children’s complexion didn’t matter at that point , but they represented “poverty, abuse, and sadness, + more”’ and she left all of it behind … Once the old life caught up she abandoned them all. The story I got at the end ,, “her life is about her , and no one else”. Ole girl will give the deuces ✌🏽, and disappear…period.
Colorism and classism can not be separated and the movie fails because it tries to do that.
@@random-dm5mdBingo
I watched this when it first released and I had to pause and call my friends when the she legit panicked at the stick figures cause it was to funny I needed someone else to see this madness
😂😂😂
This was WILD! It sounds like it had so much potential but in 17 different ways. It doesn't sound like it's too bad,, very interested in checking it out. I feel like it could work better as a series
U know I loveeeed this move just because I left hating the mother character as I should. This lady does not care about anyone but herself. Like her whole husband died and sis cut. Shut person. Loved the movie!
I LOVE your eye look! That soft brown liner is gorgeous! I’m going to have to try this.
Same 👍🏽
Why would they make the black people the bad guys? Like what was the purpose and the message? Like yeah, of course when you're abandonned, it can change you for the worse, but it doesn't make you a murderer... damn. 😅😦
I remember watching this movie back in February and at the end being so confused that I told my homegirl - who had moved to England for school 3 years ago - to watch it just so I can talk about this movie to someone😂. One thing I can say, is that this movie did well in making me uncomfortable & anxious....as well as laugh at parts that idk if the movie wanted me to laugh at LOL...But like Kennie said I too was like "what the hell is going on? what is the message?" Cuz if it's supposed to be open to MY interpretation, then welp🤷🏽♀. My homegirl and I kept laughing at the end cuz the mom really said "F*ck Them Kids!" TWICE 🤣
Maybe the running water could represent how the mother will always be running from her Blackness, but I could be reaching & giving the benefit of the doubt when the makers prob just wanted to put something annoying in that we the watcher cannot do anything about until she finally turned it off🙄.
But yeah, don't know where this movie is going with their overall message as well...I wonder if they even know.
This makeup look is really giving me a Bratz vibe😍💛
honestly to be fair..... her running and the water running in the last act was a funny motif they tried to get away with😂
There a movie on (the ever high quality) Tubi called Doom from 2005. Idk how you feel about sci-fi but this movie delights with a faintly interesting concept that was turned into possibly one of the worst scripts I've ever had the pleasure to laugh at. It also has a cast most of whom you'd recognize and have gone on to do great work, with editing worthy of a Razzie that makes it look like none of them know what they're doing. Absolute Chaos, 10/10
Kennie makes this movie seem more interesting than it seems
i think its so strange that they portray dion and carl so erratic and as the villains that cheryl/naeve set them up to be all the while portraying lightskin cheryl as calm and calculating rather than HER being the actual villain of the entire movie
Glad you’re covering this. I tried watching it but truly couldn’t get past the first 7 minutes without being completely disengaged.
The ending made me laugh too lol I was like "this b*tch ain't sh*t thooo" because she wasn't scared of black people. She knew her kids when she saw them she was tryna dodge her kids. Just like some dudes do. Lol
When I saw the notification for this video, I nearly fell off the sofa. I watched this movie earlier this year and was flabbergasted on how much went wrong. Truly, one of the most movies of all time.
P.S. This is the first time I watched a bad movie before Kennie😮.
Of course the husband dies, he was too nice to survive.
Idea for a sequel: now her 4 children try to take revenge on her all together 😝
I'm so happy it's Saturday. Somehow the notification that another one of your videos has dropped still manages to surprise me and make my evening unexpectedly better 😊❤
Lord, I can see what they were going for with this movie, but I had to use the Hubble telescope to get there. What a mess.
Every time you do another look it becomes my new favorite 😍😍😍
Right this look is stunning
@@jusiyaindia Honestly, and she does perfect looks so casually lol. I'm def trying that lip combo 😂