A Thousand and One (2023)

CinemaSerf

6.0

May 16, 2023

This features quite a strong performance from a convincing Teyana Taylor. She is "Inez" who decides that she wants to reclaim her young son "Terry" from his life on the streets of New York. What now ensues illustrates quite well the difficulties they both face as they both grow up with little by way of opportunity - or money - but determined to stick together despite their not always seeing eye to eye. Along the way, she marries "Lucky" (William Catlett), a decent man who offers some stability and it begins to look like "Terry" (by this stage played by Josiah Cross, but played well as a child…

It’s been said that a mother’s love for her child runs so deep that she’ll do virtually anything to protect her young. But is it possible to carry things too far? That’s a question raised in writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s debut feature about a mother with a criminal record (Teyana Taylor) who kidnaps her young son (Aaron Kingsley Adetola) out of foster care upon her release from prison. She questions the adequacy of the care he is receiving as a ward of the state, and so she snatches him from his foster caretaker and hides him away as she seeks to get her life together. Over the next 11 years…

A story about a mother-son relationship and how it changes over the course of a decade. With a background setting of New York in the 90s and 00s, the movie depicts how issues like poverty, crime, race, and gentrification interact. Well acted with beautiful characters. Except the kid can be a little too sniveling at times. I mean, I get that there's childhood trauma and abandonment issues, but geeeeez.