Reviews
Sumo Sway Couple Review: Let’s Cuddle
I work from home. I sit in a smallish room, typing furiously on my laptop for anywhere between 8-12 hours per day (on a slow day). I answer a ton of emails, I write posts that have to go up immediately, I answer more emails, I write posts that I can schedule for future dates, I answer even more emails, I chat with Brad so that we can strategize and plan exactly how things are going, etc, etc, etc… Basically, I’m working nearly nonstop.
Because I work so much and I do so much typing, I wanted to make sure that I’m sitting comfortably and able to relax a bit. After reading Adam’s many, many reviews for various Sumo products, I asked him if he could recommend a good one for me. One thing led to another and suddenly Sumo is sending me a Sway Couple to review.
Let me state that again in the interest of full disclosure: Sumo has sent me a Sway Couple, which I’m currently lounging in as I write this review. Alright, let’s talk about this bean bag, shall we?
Firstly, this thing is big. Like, damn, I wasn’t expecting it to be this big! It’s a large part of my office and takes up a big portion of one corner. However, there’s not too much going on in my office, so I’m totally cool with how much room it takes up. Besides, comfort gets priority.
Speaking of the size, the Sway Couple is named that because it’s big enough for a couple to share when watching a movie, playing a game, whatever. While I haven’t had the chance to share it with anyone, I can assure you that there’s more than enough room to accommodate two average-sized individuals. I’ll fully admit that I’ve managed to knock out more than a few afternoon naps on this thing.
I have the black suede edition, which feels absolutely divine. Sometimes I’ll find myself rubbing the fabric because it just feels that nice. Or I’ll slide my hand into the side pocket, which is deep enough to store all sorts of little knick knacks, such as controllers, remotes, chargers, magazines, books, etc…
When it comes to cleaning the Sway Couple, it’s very, very easy. I spilled almost a plateful of pearled couscous (it’s delicious, okay?) on it by accident and it wasn’t a big deal at all to grab some paper towel and wipe the food off. No stains, no aroma, no lingering moisture. In fact, after plopping my tuchus on it for hours a day for weeks on end, I can say that the Sway Couple smells nearly perfect (I had to bury my face into where my ass rests to catch any whiff of any body odor) and I wouldn’t have a problem sharing it.
Now, I do have to say that the Sway Couple is not perfect. My main issue with it was that the seat area began to flatten and become misshapen after a while of usage. In the product description it specifically states, “Sway large bean bag chairs stay fluffy and full, will never go flat.” I don’t know if that is meant for people who only sit in it for a few hours at a time but mine definitely went flat in the butt area and I have to fluff it up each time I use it if I want to have some cushioning. Below are pictures that show the drastic difference between fluffing and not fluffing.
Look, I’ll be completely fair and recognize that I’m using the Sway Couple outside of its intended time frame. It seems that these are meant for people who want to knock out a few hours of their favorite video game or maybe watch a movie or two, not sit on it from 9am until 9pm clickity clacking on their keyboard. Still, I wish that whatever material they put in the seat area of this bag would’ve been doubled or at least made a little thicker.
At the end of the day, I’m still really happy with my Sway Couple and don’t see myself wanting to replace it for anything else in the near future.
Your enjoyment of Strung will depend on your tolerance of clichés, contrivances, and overused plot devices. There are plenty to go around in Malcolm D. Lee’s new thriller—and each one lands with a conspicuous thud. Yet this is also a movie where the formulaicness leads to amusement.
Strung is already off to a tropey start when the protagonist, a bereft violinist named Laila (Chloe Bailey), is vividly hallucinating during one of her recitals. Who does she see in that ghastly vision on stage? The sister whose death she blames herself for, of course. That’s when Laila wakes up from what’s actually a hallucination within a dream.
After a one-night stand with a handsome rando, another too-good-to-be-true opportunity soon falls into Laila’s lap. Because she’s broke, couch-surfing and forced to practice the violin inside her best friend’s closet, she jumps on it without much forethought. That opportunity is indeed suspicious, though; a wealthy grandmother (Lynn Whitfield) hires the main character to be her granddaughter’s live-in music teacher. The pay and accommodations are definitely good, but what about the client? Or clients, as it turns out.
Strung: Anna Diop as Imani, Lucien Laviscount as Marcus. (Photo by: Ilze Kitshoff/Blumhouse)
First, there’s pianist-in-training Zuri (Romy Woods), the walking definition of “precocious child in a horror movie”. She hides behind the bizarre mask once belonging to her late father, and her preferred form of communication is sharing obscure facts. Eventually, though, Zuri is the least of Laila’s problems; it’s her neglectful, demanding, and temperamental mother (Anna Diop) who proves to be the greatest obstacle at each turn. Diop just about snatches every scene with her zealous performance as the expectant Imani. Yet as amusing as that moody matriarch can be, her behavior brings up a good question: Is this cartoonishly devious character the legit villain here, or is she simply a red herring?
The kid’s creepy mask, along with Blumhouse’s involvement, might suggest a different kind of horror movie is at work here. Strung, however, is more like a smutty modernization of classic domestic thrillers that feature big houses, imperiled women, and heaps of paranoia. Keep in mind, this is not a bait-and-switch situation; Alan B. McElroy’s screenplay never leads the viewer down a different path, only to then send them another way.
Strung feels stitched together from other (and better) movies, and your sussing out the suspects is never a hard task. But on the plus side, this movie is often bright and even a little colorful; it’s not too riddled with scenes of flat darkness or washed-out palettes. The music is also another area of interest; certain choices corroborate that comparison to old Hollywood thrillers.
Chloe Bailey as Laila. (Photo by: Ilze Kitshoff/Blumhouse)
So while Strung does string out a number of overplayed twists—with some being less foreseeable than others—it’s a bit comforting to see how some ideas never cease to be used, no matter how familiar they’ve become. The cast’s eagerness also compensates for the general been-there-done-that quality. So often, their commitment to the story is integral to the movie’s best hand-over-mouth moments (and there are quite a few).
Joe Bob Briggs once said the best source of exploitation movies today is the Lifetime network. If you agree, as well as love Tubi’s own efforts in similar filmmaking, then Strung is made for you. This movie taps that same vein of suspense schlock, all while adding a few flourishes of its own.
Strung streams on Peacock starting on June 26.
Strung (photo: Peacock)
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