Ian demands a divorce from Neve when Carl reveals that she tried to pay them off. After a tense game of Scrabble, Carl takes Ian into the home gym and forces him to bench too much weight, leading to Ian being crushed by the weights when Carl refuses to help.
What happened to the mom at the end of The Strays?
The shocking ending of The Strays exposes Neve's deceit and abandonment of her estranged children, painting her as the villain and showing the cyclical nature of trauma. Neve's departure at the end signifies the collapse of her idealized life and the beginning of a new cycle of trauma for her children.
It turns out that Carl and Dione are Neve's, or Cheryl's, kids. This shocking moment in The Strays showed us how much Neve was tired of her old life to the point where she had no problem leaving her two kids behind and on their own.
Bug has been taken in by the lost little girl's family, Maggie has joined the K-9 unit, and Hunter returns to being a service dog without his cone. Meanwhile, Reggie has decided to embrace his new life as a stray dog. He has now taken on Bug's "stray leader" role and becomes a teacher to other stray dogs that he finds.
There, Carl coerces Ian to lift increasingly heavy weights until he is unable to hold them, and the weight falls on him, resulting in his apparent death. Meanwhile, after the Uber Eats driver arrives, Neve tells the group she will tip the driver and be right back; she does not return.
Told from a constantly shifting perspective, The Strays eventually reveals the true identity of the pair: They're Carl and Dione, Neve's children from her abusive relationship who were left behind with their aunt 20 years ago.
Although The Strays on Netflix is not based on a true story, Nathaniel did admit to Radio Times that his directorial debut was inspired by a story that he once heard from his own mother. "[It] was about a woman who essentially was denying the fact that she had two Black children," he revealed to the outlet.
Things get increasingly strained as Carl threatens Ian – Neve's husband – with a machete and takes him into the home gym, forcing him to bench too much weight and leading to him being crushed to death by the force.
Afterwards, the strays move on: Hunter returns to being a therapy dog and starts a relationship with Maggie, the latter begins training as a police dog, the Girl Scout adopts Bug, and Reggie remains a stray and chooses to guide new strays, though still spends time with the other dogs often.
As such, Strays 2 is not confirmed, but it also hasn't been entirely ruled out as well. The fate of Strays 2 will depend on the long-term success of the original, and it will also hinge on the box office take.
What were the pills Neve was taking in The Strays?
Considering the hallucination she experiences throughout the film, they pills might be a treatment for a mental disorder. However, some Redditors have suggested that they are actually skin bleaching pills.
Much like fellow British thriller I Came By, The Strays is getting an unintentionally timely release as Neve's story has ties to mental health struggles and an abusive relationship, topics that have become more prevalent over the past few years.
Wikipedia describes The Strays as a British "horror" film. I would not classify it anywhere close to horror unless you accept the hallucinations of the main character and her possible "mental illness" as real. The Strays really is an attempt at social commentary by way of revenge fantasy (a la Quentin Tarantino).
Though it appears like she effortlessly blends in among her white neighbors, colleagues, and friends, Neve's nervous tick of scratching under her wigs tells us otherwise. Her anxiety increases when she notices a young Black man and woman who are very out of place in her lily-white world.
), Australian shepherd Maggie (Isla Fisher) and a Great Dane named Hunter (Randall Park). Together, these strays embark on a journey where they encounter vicious predators, animal control officers and even some mind-altering mushrooms.
Quaid's involvement came about after Greenbaum and Perrault added the role of a random birdwatcher to the script, to punctuate a sequence in which an eagle swoops down and captures Bug, with Reggie leaping to Bug's aid. “It just seemed funny to cut to somebody who then spots an eagle carrying two dogs,” Greenbaum says.
Doug finally confessing to Reggie that he doesn't love him as he's about to kill him with a baseball bat. Doug is the main antagonist of the 2023 adult comedy film Strays.
Strays does have a post-credits scene, which comes at the midway point of the credits sequence, offering audiences an additional scene for a few more laughs. The mid-credits scene is worth waiting for, providing viewers with one or two extra laughs before concluding their watch of the R-rated comedy.
Director Josh Greenbaum used real dogs instead of CGI canines for a more authentic feel, with 95% of the movie featuring real animals. "Strays" performed well with fans, earning a "B+" CinemaScore and a 73% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, despite mixed reviews from critics.
The film is based on the true story of how a stray dog named Pluto saved the Davis family 25 years ago. “We were a young family struggling to make everything work,” Mitch said.
Neve/Cheryl has taken off with the delivery man and abandoned her kids again. This time it's all of them. The final shot is of the four children all standing together in stunned silence.
It is not just implied but shown that Cheryl, who goes by the name of Neve to her Caucasian compatriots, was disgusted with her own skin and the treatment she had received as a Black woman in London. In a drastic attempt to change her status, she dons a wig and a posh accent to further separate her from her urban past.
Despite messy plotting and occasional ill focus, fantastic lead performances help The Strays find its way before a knockout ending really carries Martello-White's eye-catching debut home. It's a stylish film, but one that's ultimately too shallow and familiar to be truly effective...
Make no mistake, parents: This talking-dog movie is for the grownups. Strays, which opens in theaters on Friday, is not geared to children despite its cuddly stars. Billed as a "subversion of the dog movies we know and love," the comedy is rated R for "pervasive language, crude and sexual content, and drug use."
This is the reason we barely see comedy movies any more, let alone R-rated ones that don't hold back. Strays is fun and funny from beginning to end. The hit rate on the comedic attempts is high. Most of it made me laugh out loud.
