Straw follows the harrowing day in the life of Janiyah Wiltkinson, a single mother who seems to have almost nothing left to lose. She lives in a run-down apartment with her young daughter, Aria, who suffers from health problems—seizures in particular—that require medicine and attention. From the start, we are shown that Janiyah is behind on rent, struggling to make ends meet. Her boss is harsh, her landlord threatens eviction, and every small thing seems destined to go wrong.

One by one, the pressure builds. Janiyah drops Aria at school, trades tense words with the principal, then goes to her job at a grocery store, where she is mistreated and forced to do more than her fair share of work. Meanwhile, a string of mishaps—her car being impounded, being late to work, confrontations with people who judge her without knowing her situation—just stack up. She loses her job, finds herself evicted, and everything seems to push her closer to desperation.

Her breaking point comes after a violent incident: while confronting her boss about her pay, a robbery happens at the store. In the chaos, Janiyah ends up shooting one of the robbers, and then her boss is killed. Panicked and emotionally unmoored, she flees, grabs her paycheck, and heads to a bank in hopes of getting cash. But at the bank, things escalate further when she is denied the money because she lacks ID. Frustration and fear drive her to pull a gun, though she is not truly a robber in intent.

Inside the bank, the manager, Nicole, recognizes Janiyah and tries to calm the situation. Meanwhile, law enforcement closes in. Detective Kay Raymond, who has some personal understanding of what Janiyah is going through, attempts to negotiate. A bank teller begins livestreaming the standoff, and public sympathy builds as the world watches a woman pushed beyond her limits. But the reality of Janiyah’s situation is more complicated than it seems.

A twist emerges: much of what Janiyah has been experiencing throughout that day has been filtered through her grief—her daughter, Aria, actually died the night before from a seizure. Janiyah, unable to fully process the loss, has unknowingly been hallucinating or misremembering many events—her visits to school, phone calls, even the involvement of Child Protective Services. This revelation reframes everything that has come before it.

In the end, despite the chaos, Janiyah surrenders peacefully. With help from Nicole and Detective Raymond, she lets go of the gun, exits the bank with her hands up, and is taken into custody. Outside, a crowd of supporters cheers her on. The film closes on a note of tragic realism but also a kind of hard-won empathy: Janiyah is not punished for being broken, but her surrender acknowledges that the system—with all its failings—has allowed her to reach her straw moment.