It has been over 20 years since the debut of “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” and even now, taking a sabbatical from life’s routine challenges is still portrayed as something only white female protagonists get to do (think Julia Roberts in “Eat Pray Love” or Reese Witherspoon in “Wild”).

According to cinema, black women are too strong and too resilient to abandon their many obligations. They don’t suddenly bus it out of the city and away from their demanding families, as does the titular character in “Juanita,” a Netflix Original film directed by Clark Johnson. That makes Juanita (Alfre Woodard) a bit of a rebel.

Exhausted with no time to herself, Juanita spends most of her days working an unfulfilling job, babysitting her granddaughter and visiting her son in jail. She can’t even get a reprieve in her dreams, in which she concocts a shirtless Blair Underwood kissing her feet. He, too, asks to borrow money.