The title of A.V. Rockwell’s film, “A Thousand and One,” speaks to the many struggles 22-year-old Inez (Tenyana Taylor) faces as she tries to raise her son in New York City in the late 1990s and 2000s. The M.V. Film Center is screening this thoroughly engrossing feature on June 19 in honor of Juneteenth.
Inez is fierce, speaks her mind, and is quick to anger. We meet her in 1994 at Rikers Island Correctional Facility, styling a fellow inmate’s hair just before Inez is released from prison. Once released, she tries unsuccessfully to get her old stylist job back. But Inez’s real interest is tracking down her 6-year-old son, Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola), who believes she left him on a street corner before disappearing and thus wants little to do with her.
Inez is relentless in winning him over, continually visiting Terry in the hospital, where he landed after hurting himself while trying to escape from his foster mother. As she breaks through Terry’s protective wall, he confronts Inez about why she kept leaving him. Truly devastated, she asks, “Would it make you feel better if you came to live with me for just a few days?” When he agrees, Inez kidnaps him, escaping into the far reaches of Brooklyn and then Harlem. But her frustration at not being able to find a safe place to call home sends Inez ricocheting into short-tempered outbursts that sharply contrast with her loving moments of motherhood.
However, her fierce devotion to Terry keeps her fueled to meet one obstacle after another. She reassures him, “I’d go to war for you. They’re not breaking us up this time.” Later, he asks, “Why is nobody looking for me?” She responds, “Because we made it too hard for them.” Yet the ever-present threat of being found out threads through the story, including when Inez has to obtain a forged birth certificate and Social Security card to enroll Terry in school.
Life becomes more complicated when Lucky (William Catlett), Inez’s boyfriend, is released from jail and moves in with them. The relationship among all three is intriguingly nuanced, marked by moments of joy and connection as well as wrenching periods of strife. At one point, Inez tells Lucky, “Damaged people don’t know how to love each other.” Through thick and thin, however, Inez and Lucky, both of whom grew up without a family, try to create a stable home for Terry. At times, though, Inez’s intense need to provide the best possible life for her son causes tension in the household.
As the film progresses over the years, two additional actors portray Terry — Aven Courtney at 13 and Josiah Cross at 17. The three of them, and indeed the entire cast, deliver seamless performances with a depth that echoes Rockwell’s script, in which the city itself plays a part. According to Focus Features’ website, Rockwell infused the film with her own personal history of growing up Black in Harlem. She told Essence, “What really compelled me to tell this story so urgently was seeing firsthand the impact of gentrification on the Black communities of New York City.” And as a superb storyteller, Rockwell, for good measure, throws a curveball in her ending, which tosses everything you thought you understood into question.
For tickets and information, visit mvfilmsociety.com.