I went into Last Straw completely blind, which is something I don’t usually do when I’m working. But it turned out to be the right call this time, as I realized watching it without knowing anything beforehand is the best experience one could have. Because after a certain point very early on, it becomes quite predictable. There’s a twist, sure, but it’s not something that changes the course of the film. Alan Scott Neal’s film is fairly straightforward, except Last Straw’s ending maybe. We’re going to look into that in this article.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens in the Film?
In a very tropey manner, Last Straw opens at a diner called Fat Bottom Bistro, and by the look of it, you realize a lot has happened here. There’s blood everywhere, and you also get glimpses of multiple dead bodies. You hear the voice of this guy called Jake Collins calling 911 and asking for assistance, as his friend Nancy is lying on the floor covered in blood.
The narrative then moves back twenty-four hours. Nancy’s day starts with her waking up in the middle of nowhere and then taking a pregnancy test that ends up reading positive. From a conversation she has with her friend Tabitha, we realize she’s not particularly thrilled about it, and that she also doesn’t know who the father is. Soon, she’s driving to work (at diner, obviously), and her car breaks down, so she starts walking. Thankfully, her colleague Bobby comes along after a while, and Nancy gets a lift on his bike. Bobby seems to be romantically into Nancy, but she clearly doesn’t reciprocate. The diner happens to be owned by Nancy’s father, Edward, who’s excited about some big date he has lined up for the evening. So Nancy has to look after the diner during the night, which is something she absolutely doesn’t want, as she also has plans with Tabitha. But she can’t escape the responsibility as she’s a manager now, a fact which Edward stresses on a bit too much. Things get further worse for Nancy when Edward lets her know that Jake, this guy who works at the diner, is going to be with Nancy during the night shift. Nancy finds Jake creepy, but Edward is absolutely unbothered about it. Jake is pretty much his right-hand man, whom he blindly trusts—clearly more than his daughter. It’s quite clear at this point that the men in this film are either idiots, creeps, or absolute douches. Even “I’m the nice guy,” Bobby comes off as not so nice eventually.
What Happens After Edward Leaves?
We already know all hell’s going to break loose at the Fat Bottom Bistro from the opening scene, so the entire second act of Last Straw is basically us waiting for that to happen. A bunch of obnoxious teenagers harassing Nancy by wearing scary clown masks and bringing animal carcass inside the diner is where it all starts. Nancy handles the situation, but she’s also mad at her staff for not helping her at all. It becomes evident that the staff, led by Jake, undermines her authority—primarily because she’s younger than them, a woman, and got to be their manager only because her father owns the place. None of it warrants their bad behavior toward her, but like I said, the men in the film are no good apples. A lot of what happens next could have been avoided if Nancy hadn’t fired Jake abruptly and just gone through the day, but the dude had it coming. From the very first moment, Jake has been intolerable, and Nancy’s decision to throw him out is totally justifiable.
Who Attacks the Diner?
I get that it would have been way simpler if the obnoxious teenagers had attacked the bistro at night in order to take it out on Nancy. But that straightforwardness could have actually saved the movie. Not that the twist—Jake getting mad at Nancy and coming for her with the rest of the staff, including Bobby—doesn’t make sense, but it seems a tad unnecessary. Sure, it satisfies the social commentary angle, which basically makes a mockery out of the “not all men” theory, but Last Straw doesn’t have a strong enough screenplay to justify that. We also didn’t need the whole Jake struggling with life montage, because ultimately, he’s the disgruntled employee who’s entitled enough to think it’s okay to torture his employer. Of course, there’s a patriarchal angle, as I’m pretty certain Jake wouldn’t have done that to Edward. I also believe the whole thing was not quite planned, but Jake just went along with his rage and caused it all.
Jake first takes it out on the obnoxious teenagers, who were minding their own business. He blames them for him getting fired and ends up killing one of them. His brother, Pete, a meek guy who would do anything Jake asks without questioning, wields a gun with his shaking hands while Jake does the deed. Next up, Jake goes up to Bobby and Coop. He wants to go to the diner and scare Nancy. Coop has no love for Nancy, so he’s easily convinced, and Bobby has had enough of his nice guy crap—he’s not going to get it with Nancy anyway. So the gang of four goes to the diner to do typical terrible men things, except Nancy turns out to be a tough cookie.
Is Nancy alive?
Nancy is cut from the same cloth as Samara Weaving’s character in Ready or Not or the late Anton Yelchin’s character in Green Room. She might be down, but never out. And she has a lot of pent-up rage inside, ready to explode. With the pregnancy discovery, the uncalled-for sickness, obnoxious teenagers, and creepy Jake’s antics, she has had one hell of a terrible day already. But when Jake and co. attack the diner, wearing the scary clown masks that Jake took from the teenagers, Nancy does the logical thing, which is call the police. Even the policeman, a middle-aged man with a disgruntled face, doesn’t hesitate to check her out in such a situation. However, he does want to help, and the moment he hears from Nancy that the attackers came on mopeds (she’s still referring to those teenagers), he’s alarmed. Sadly, the lone policeman dies nine out of ten times in movies like this, and the stakes can only get higher if it comes down to Nancy against the big bad world. Bobby does have a change of heart though, and shifts to team Nancy for good, but it also costs him his life at the hands of Jake. Poor Petey gets stabbed by his boss Nancy; in fact, that’s when she finally realizes that it is, in fact, her employers out to take revenge on her (for no valid reason). The diner setting of the movie provides her the opportunity to use the deep fryer on Coop, and watching bad men getting fried on screen is always a pleasure. Ultimately though, it’s a fight between Jake and Nancy where both get to stab each other (there’s no shortage of knives here), but Jake gets the best of Nancy. Well, so he thought! The call Jake made at the beginning of the movie is obviously an attempt to create an alibi and get away with it. And he probably would have if he had actually managed to kill Nancy. Little did he know that Nancy had skillfully padded herself with steaks (she has an abundance of those, given it’s a diner), up front and back. She’s smart enough to pull off that stunt, which eventually allows her to get up, drive the police car to Jake’s residence, and take care of him.
On her way back to the diner though, she falls to the ground, but her father, aka the biggest idiot in the world, is finally here. We get another flashback from the day before, where Nancy talks to Tabitha about feeling stuck with life and not being able to live freely and scared of her father finding out about her pregnancy. But the last twenty-four hours have certainly changed her, and she doesn’t hesitate to utter the phrase “my baby” to Edward while he checks up on her. Is Nancy going to live? I bet she will, because otherwise this story has no point. Has she lost the baby? Probably yes, but then again, miracles happen at times. I would say it really doesn’t matter, though. What matters is Nancy finally taking control of her own life and making sure nobody ever stomps on her.
