A Thousand and One: Intense Sundance-Approved Family Drama Not Exactly as Shown

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B

By the time the new drama A Thousand and One draws to a close on the heels of a whale of a twist, there is the distinct sense that the most remarkable aspect of the story is about to get started just as the cameras stop rolling.

That’s not to suggest what has come before isn’t compelling. But talk about leaving your audience hanging. To say any more would be a spoiler, so let’s just say the film — told almost exclusively through tight close-ups of faces and aerial shots of New York’s boroughs — offers no tidy conclusion. If that’s writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s point, well then, job done. Sign me up for the sequel.

A Thousand and One opens in 1994 at Riker’s Island, where Inez (a powerfully committed Teyana Taylor, present in almost every scene) is doing another inmate’s hair. Back on the street, Inez hustles for hairdressing clients, handing out flyers to passersby while shaking down a hostile former boss for unpaid wages earned before her incarceration.

One day, Inez spots a small boy on the street with friends. Adorable Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola) is wide-eyed and mostly mute. Does he not recognize Inez, or is something else making him look askance? Inez keeps an eye on Terry and, as the trailer reveals, visits him in hospital where he lands with a minor injury. Inez asks about his foster mom, corrects what she claims is false history about her, and ultimately kidnaps Terry, though he goes willingly as an innocent six-year-old might.

Homeless in Harlem and now with a small child in tow, Inez starts dialling old friends and acquaintances via payphone looking for a place to crash. This is the viewer’s first clue that while Inez is all kinds of charismatic and passionate, sensible choices aren’t her forte.

Inez and Terry land with sympathetic old friend Kim (Terri Abney) and her disapproving mom, and from here, A Thousand and One becomes a story of redemption as Inez struggles to right her life while providing for Terry, whom she clearly adores. Schemes to conceal the child’s identity become part of everyday life as the pair inculcate a sense of normalcy in the sometimes fraught mother-son mould.

Before long, another key player enters the picture: Lucky (William Catlett), Inez’s former lover who was also jailed and also strongly desires to live straight once and for all. Lucky, Inez, and Terry first form a makeshift family, and then a legal one as the adults get hitched and Lucky promises Terry he won’t steal Inez away. Rather, “We’re going to give you the life we never had.” Cue soaring emotions.

Fast-forward to 2001 and 13-year-old Terry (Aven Courtney) is exploring more-or-less normal teenage life as Inez and Lucky’s relationship begins to wobble. No matter, this apparent family drama takes its time to draw us into the intimate orbit of its characters as we observe the minutiae of their lives, from clumsy attempts at dating (Terry) to workaday ennui (Inez).

It’s a slightly different story for Lucky, who seems very preoccupied with a comely neighbour and has a habit of disappearing. We learn why in a secondary twist near film’s end.

Another leap in time takes us forward four years where 17-year-old Terry (Josiah Cross) is singled out for acclaim by his teacher and guidance counsellor, who recognize in the quiet boy a sharp mind that should be nurtured by specialty education and relevant community work. Which requires identification. Which is where Terry and Inez’s story, to this point a more-or-less straightforward portrait of a family struggling to live but bound by love, starts to unravel, becoming something with a great deal more emotional heft than even the initial kidnapping.

There are many dynamics at play in A Thousand and One, most of them rooted in family or a lack thereof. It is intimated that Inez was essentially raised on the street and that many of her and Lucky’s bad choices were inevitable outcomes of people who lacked grounding and were surrounded by drugs, gangs, and poverty.

That’s a legit story if not a novel one. Yet that doesn’t seem to be the one the filmmaker most wants to tell despite that narrative dominating most of the film. The beforementioned twist in A Thousand and One — which won the grand jury prize: dramatic at the Sundance Film Festival last January where it premiered — feels like the key that would unlock something vastly more interesting than what’s ultimately presented here.

If that sounds vague, that’s because that’s how this movie feels, strong performances notwithstanding.

A Thousand and One. Written and directed by A.V. Rockwell. Starring Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, and Aaron Kingsley Adetola. In theatres March 31.