Directed By A.V Rockwell

Starring – Teyana Taylor, Aaron Kingsley Adeltola, Aven Courtney

The Plot – Unapologetic and free-spirited Inez (Taylor) kidnaps her six-year-old son Terry (Adetola) from the foster care system. Holding onto their secret and each other, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly changing melting pot of New York City.

Rated R for adult language

A THOUSAND AND ONE – Official Trailer [HD] – Only In Theaters March 31 – YouTube

POSITIVES

In the same manner how Spike Lee once conjured an immersive consciousness to the big apple that made it feel like a character of its own permeating in the background of his many energetically eclectic ensembles, so too does A.V Rockwell, with a kind of authentic insight about Harlem that feels like it truly could only come from one of its own. In thematic impulses, that lends itself to the dynamic of our dual protagonists, particularly the bond between mother and son, which feels like the perfect fit in a world that quite literally is falling apart surrounding them. For a refreshing change of pace in a black-led narrative, the film focuses on the vital importance of a mother’s guiding hand, and one with all of the weight of responsibility and the resiliency in the discourse of a world that grows all the more difficult for ex-cons attempting to start anew with less than desirable surroundings. For those visuals, the film has lightning in a bottle emanating from a rich combination of lucid framing, subtlty in production designs, and transformative essence in cinematography, hurling us seamlessly to the brink of the 21st century, with more than a few triggered familiarities in the age that I grew up in. The wardrobe is especially impressive during such a timely relevance, with Tommy Hillfiger, Sean John, and other dated fashion trends articulating unshakeable relevance in the time frame they’re depicted in, and the growing dependency on establishing shots overlooking the city grows all the more unsettling with its rapid changes involving springing storefronts that allude to the idea of gentrification on the prowl for many unfortunate lower class citizens forced out of their homes overnight. None of this would resonate effectively without meaningful performances to their merit, and thankfully the combination of Taylor and her trio of Terry’s capably take the reigns in supplanting the film with enough dramatic heft to get us through the repetitive formula in structure. Taylor in particular is a blistering whirlwind, unloading depth in the varying emotions she’s asked to continuously convey, with an underlining mental instability that feels like a ticking timebomb that could capably blow at any moment. She not only effortlessly captivates the attention of the narrative any time she invades the canvas, but with the aforementioned trio also effectively renders a parental relationship on the rocks that capably fills in the blanks throughout the eleven years within the film that we’re not able to experience, making it feel every bit as lived in with realism as it is complex with the definition of their relationship, which is anything but conventional. Finally, while the script has its problems that it can’t quite escape from, the exposition I found to be rather charming and indulgent, especially since it’s able to completely evade long-winded deposits full of the kind of obvious intentions that often take me out of films. Here, Rockwell instead obscures the obvious in emotions and experiences that are almost always behind us, with clues contained in a single expression or lingering quiet that capably measures the internal devastation in ways that are subtle, but above all else sincere in their stitching.

NEGATIVES

This film wants so badly to be the next “Moonlight”, from its three act structure revolving around three different time periods for our child protagonist, to that child growing to question some of the vital relationships that made him who he eventually grows to become. Both of these things are great ideas to imbed to a film’s creativity, but where it stalls a bit within the execution of “A Thousand and One” is the transitions themselves to the triple-tiered structure often supplanting an aprupt spontaneity to their springing forward, which not only unresolved certain aspects in the foreground of the current narrative, but also made the coming one all the more jarring for how the halves never share any kind of even accidental continuity in stitching them together. This is most felt between the first and second arcs, where the former receives almost double the time of the latter, allowing one to feel a lot more fleshed out than the other, with some newfound discoveries in the second act involving characters quite literally coming out of nowhere. Beyond this, the only other problem that I had with the film was the lack of exploration within the central conflict, which made it feel a bit unnecessary, until a third act revelation reshapes the stakes completely. The twist is nice, but everything before it lacks the kind of urgency to keep me invested to the plight of the protagonists, especially considering the film literally doesn’t mention it again until the aforementioned twist, and by then it oversteps the ability to ingest some heart-pounding stakes to a film with enough heart to supply the entire big apple.

OVERALL
“A Thousand and One” is an emotionally crippling and visually transformative feature length debut for A.V Rockwell, who grants insight and instincts to the rarely depicted side of perseverance in black motherhood. Through a virtuoso performance from Taylor, as well as an astonishingly impressive production value that teleports us seamlessly to an anything but simpler time, the film is one of many stories of families continuously crippled by the greed of 21st century gentrification, where love is the only thing that can save them.

My Grade: 8/10 or B+