A Thousand and One (2023)

A Thousand and One review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

A Thousand and One is an urban drama that comes packed with surprises. It tells the complicated story of a boy growing up with a chaotic home life built upon lies and scraping by in the unpredictable nature of New York. Small moments of joy and gut-punching moments of sadness mix into a sublime experience, highlighting family problems and not having a choice in the cards you were dealt by one party or another. For being the directorial debut by A.V. Rockwell, this director knocks this story out of the park.

The film centers around hairdresser and thief Inez de la Paz (Teyana Taylor). After serving her time, she attempts to get back in touch with her taken-away son, Terry. Fed up with having her son placed in foster care, Inez takes matters into her own hands and steals away Terry. She hides from the law in her own apartment and falsifies Terry’s documents to ensure Terry has a stable life with his mother. Surprisingly, this worked out for years, as the 1990s soon became the 2000s. As time progresses, Terry improves in school and may even get to know and love his dad, Lucky (Will Catlett), a bit more.

There are hills and valleys in this family. Inez hopes her new landlord will improve the problems with her apartment, but the renovations may place them on the street. Lucky is keen to help raise Terry, but he might not tell his boy the truth. Terry may have a chance to get into a STEM school, but his false documents could hinder that possibility. And things only get more complicated once social services get involved and reveal that there’s more to Terry than his mother told him many years ago. All of this happens amid the common problems of New York, where police brutality and gentrification echo in the background as a reminder of how quickly your life can fall apart in such an environment.

The drama is pitch-perfect in this film due in no small part to the fantastic performance by Teyana Taylor. She plays a mother who is desperate and struggling to do better but also has issues with anger and trust, unable to place enough faith in anybody not to feel so alone. She never becomes the bad guy for either denying her child a different or making controversial calls with parenting. Even the ultimate reveal of Inez’s big secret still has an air of sympathy amid her life-altering lies and desperation for some sense of love.

The little details of A.V. Rockwell’s film make it shine with realism and heart. I found myself fascinated by the passage of time as the young Terry is expected to stay inside with TV all day to ensure social services won’t find him. The decaying apartment showcases a fight-fear by Inez of trying to slap duct tape on life she knows full well she can’t keep together for much longer. There are also a lot of sweet and simple exchanges between Terry and Lucky that have a calm charm to them, where a subtle sense of father and son slowly takes shape, even if it won’t last long.

A Thousand and One is a drama that makes you feel alive with how profoundly it portrays a complicated family. It amasses so much of the fears of being a parent, along with all the frustrations of children growing up who fear what they may become. It’s a deeply moving picture, and I greatly look forward to seeing what A.V. Rockwell will do next.