REVIEW: New Film A Thousand and One Starring Teyana Taylor Is a Must Watch

A Thousand and One is the latest drama by Sight Unseen, Makeready, and Hillman Grad Productions and will be released from Focus Features starring Teyana Taylor. The film made its debut at Sundance, winning the Grand Jury Prize.

A Thousand and One is the award-winning debut feature film written and directed by A.V. Rockwell. The ’90s and Harlem-based film follows Inez de la Paz, a young woman who is swept in and out of homelessness struggling to make ends meet as a hairdresser with a son for whom she does not have custody. She kidnaps him from foster care while he is at a hospital and must play a dangerous game with school and government officials to keep him safe and not lose him again.

She is forced to give up the profession she loves, doing hair within her community, in order to take a 9-5 job as a cleaning person. The job is hours away by train but her only option at putting a roof over her and her son’s heads.

The film evolves as we see her son, Terry, portrayed by three different actors with the youngest at 6 years old played by Aaron Kingsley Adetola, 13-year-old Terry played by Aven Courtney, and 17-year-old Terry played by Josiah Cross. We are able to see the various versions of her son and the dynamics that many Black mothers undertake to raise their children many times alone, without adequate childcare; Terry is seen laying on the floor asleep after being left home alone to watch TV while Inez traveled to work.

The film shows the hardships and very difficult decisions mothers face when they simply do not have the funds for childcare and are met with systematic oppression with regard to race and class. Inez is left to raise her son as a single mother without proper paperwork, which meant difficulties registering Terry for school and a lifelong fear of possibly being arrested, pushing Terry back into the system once again.

Once registered, Terry goes on to be a gifted student yet problems arise with Josiah Cross’ version of Terry when he doesn’t have the proper documentation to move on to a school for the gifted, take his SATs or apply to universities under the name he’s currently using at school. At any given time Inez could be found out and criminally charged for not having legal custody and we witness the daunting thread of hardship in which we see her raise Terry as the film progresses.

Inez is joined sporadically by her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Lucky, portrayed by William Catlett (Lovecraft Country, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey) who creates another layer of added drama to Inez’s tumultuous life but not without a real underlying bond of misunderstood love.

A Thousand and One was a truly mesmerizing body of work with beautiful storytelling capturing ’90s Harlem with every intricate detail, encompassing outstanding writing, direction, and production. The editing, color, cinematography, and score were superb. As someone who knows Harlem, it was a deep and soulful love letter to Black people, especially Black women in all of those intricate details that sometimes seem too vast to even try to fix including the political climate, but one must keep moving. 

A Thousand and One captures that movement and that dance with life that sometimes in bias appears wounded, flatlined, and undeserving, and shows the intricate layers of love, compassion, empathy, survival, and pure excellence. Teyana Taylor is phenomenal and I expected nothing less. Cast performances across the board were fantastic. 

The film is produced by Eddie Vaisman and Julia Lebedev (Sight Unseen), Lena Waithe and Rishi Rajani (Hillman Grad), and Brad Weston (Makeready). Sight Unseen’s Oren Moverman is executive producing alongside Rachel Jacobs. Sight Unseen, Makeready, and Hillman Grad Productions are behind titles such as The Listener, Bad Education, the upcoming Willie Nelson docuseries, The Event, Chang Can Dunk for Disney+, Being Mary: The Mary Tyler Moore Documentary, and Not Okay.

See A Thousand and One in theaters on March 31 and watch the trailer below.