Rating: R | Runtime: 117 minutes
Release Date: March 31st, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Focus Features
Director(s): A.V. Rockwell
Writer(s): A.V. Rockwell

Full disclosure: A.V. Rockwell’s A Thousand and One takes a bit to get going. Everything that happens in 1994 is very by-the-numbers and you never quite know where things are going as the characters move in circles. Inez (Teyana Taylor) and her temper. Lucky (William Catlett) and his insecurities. Little Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola) and his fear. Nothing really seems to be advanced or said and I kept wondering where it was all heading once “2001” flashed across the screen. “Okay,” I thought. Tragedy will strike as the towers come down and we’ll finally break the monotony. Except 9/11 is never mentioned.

Instead, we get a first-hand look at “stop and frisk”. We start to see that the film is as much about this trio trying to survive each other as it is about them, as Black Americans, trying to survive a country that sees their skin as an obstacle to greater wealth and thus a blight that must be removed. It’s the gentrification of Harlem against the potential salvation of a young Black man raised by two ex-con orphans to be better and have better than they ever could or had. It’s not perfect or even ideal considering words Inez poignantly admits later on (“Damaged people don’t know how to love each other.”), but Terry (now played by Aven Courtney) does his best to get by.

Suddenly all the repetition in the first act finds context and clarity—both in how it has built these characters and how it’s changed them. And that evolution continues into a powerful third act that brings everything full circle to the film’s central event (Inez kidnapping her son from foster care after getting out of jail) and the inevitable consequences. By the time this final section begins with a “Four years later” designation, I found myself wholly invested in this family to the point where I forgot I was losing focus and checking my watch at the start. Rockwell knows full well what she’s doing here. Pacing. Plotting. Dialogue. It’s all working towards a reveal that forces you to question who the criminal truly is.

The details are everything too. Nothing on-screen is out there without specific intent to both obfuscate the secret being withheld and pointedly educate us on racist and bigoted New York City politics, ill-equipped social services, and corrupt foster homes (issues that still exist today). It even carries through to the end with two women discussing options and using a telling tone when discovering their best one is woefully insufficient. Despite everything that’s revealed, however, the life we are watching is the utopian choice. It proves to be a success story even if it might end in complete disarray and destruction. Happily ever afters can be complex.

It helps that Rockwell found actors who were able to give the material the authenticity it demands by portraying imperfect souls struggling to be better even as they find themselves failing again and again. The key is that, while they might end up failing themselves, they never fail each other. It leads to hard goodbyes and tearful recognition, all of which feels earned as a result of everything that came before. Catlett gets his time to shine in 2001, but it’s Taylor and Josiah Cross (as the now seventeen-year-old Terry) who steal the show in 2005. The culmination of their eleven years together is at once hopeful, heartbreakingly tragic, and real.

So, stick with it even if it seems like things are initially going nowhere. You need to know who Inez is at the beginning to understand who she’s become at the end. You need to see the pain that marks her relationship with both Lucky and her son to appreciate the sacrifices and toughness necessary to keep them together despite so much emotional, psychological, and financial distress. Because while damaged people might not know how to love each other, they do their best anyway. Maybe it’s not enough. Maybe it’s too late. But it’s still there. Sometimes you just can’t fully comprehend its deeply profound weight until it’s gone.

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(L to R) Teyana Taylor stars as “Inez de la Paz” and Aaron Kingsley Adetola stars as six year old “Terry” in writer/director A.V. Rockwell’s feature directorial debut A THOUSAND AND ONE; courtesy of Focus Features.