STRUNG
Starring: Chloe Bailey, Lynn Whitfield, Anna Diop, Lucien Laviscount, Coco Jones, and Romy Woods
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
AMARÚ
When you cast Lynn Whitfield and Anna Diop, you know you’re going to get some mysterious and messy stuff. Strung is shot with an ethereal quality to highlight those mystically thriller vibes, but it’s tonally all over the place due to some massively goofy decisions. From weird music cues to horribly inconsistent dialogue and character decisions, this soap opera does Chloe Bailey no favors as she tries to navigate a new(ish) acting career. This is one big slightly-better-than-bad soap opera. But then again, when you have Ms. Whitfield, it’ll never be flat-out bad.
ROBERT
If you take a sprinkle of Soul, a dash of The Perfection, mix in a generous helping of The Housemaid, you get Strung. The movie wanted to be Get Out so badly, I could sense it closing its eyes, gritting its teeth, and attempting to level up like an anime character. Unfortunately, it ended up only reaching its final streamer-level form. I give credit that the “erotic” segment of its erotic thriller categorization did really work for me, but everything else was disjointed and poorly executed to where I knew the ending with fifty minutes remaining. Follow your intuition and perhaps peruse Peacock for alternatives.
