‘A Thousand and One’ Film Review
by William Lindus
At the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic category was awarded to a scrappy coming-of-age family drama ‘A Thousand and One,’ which tells the story of a scrappy mother, Inez (Teyana Taylor) who kidnaps her son Terry from the foster care system. Over the next ten years, the two must adjust to both the gentrification happening in Harlem and to the impact of their shared secret on their lives together.
In her feature film directorial debut, A.V Rockwell paints a New York City that devolves from its culturally rich, if rough around the edges, mid-90s heart and grit into something that feels sterile and uninhabitable as the years progress, at least to the people who make Harlem their home. Affordable housing comes down, replaced by high-end condos and shopping centers, leaving a trail of boutique destruction. This setting provides a contrast to the core relationship in the film; as New York City changes, we aren’t sure if we recognize it anymore, or if we even want to. Likewise, as Inez finds stability and Terry grows from a quiet six year old into a prodigy looking at collegiate options, the two have to navigate how they’ve changed, and what place they can - and should- occupy in each other’s lives.
Teyana Taylor is a tour de force as Inez, whose temper and criminal history at Riker’s Island Penitentiary give her a limited number of people she can rely on and an even more limited number of options. Teyana tackles the role with tenacity, giving us a performance that is strong, vulnerable, abrasive, and engaging. As she makes the difficult decision to either watch her son grow up in foster care, or to take him on the run, her choice is almost predestined: Inez, more than anything, loves her son, and nothing will stand in the way of that love.
Three actors take the mantle of Terry: Aaron Kingsley Adetola (age 6), Aven Courtney (age 13) and Josiah Cross (age 17), and each of the three delivers a solid performance. The role of Terry is a complicated one, as each of the actors have to maintain a continuity in Terry’s development from a subdued boy unsure of his place in the world, to a teenager finding his place in his community, to a young man on the cusp of adulthood having to reconcile his place in the world. Through each of these performance, we see not just Terry, but the impact Inez has had on Terry, and the way the two of them are shaped by their environment.
‘A Thousand and One’ is the type of movie that sits with you, not because of its narrative twists and bends, but because of how it answers its core question: how far would you go for someone you love? For Inez, there are no limits. For Terry, he has to learn his.
4 out of 5 Bear Paws