A Thousand and One (A. V. Rockwell, 2023) (Patreon)

If you follow my writing (which presumably you do, to some extent), you know I have a few hobby-horses I come back to again and again. And one of them relates to debut films, and the tendency of "tyro helmers" to stuff way too much plot, and way too many ideas, into their films. It's a logical response to how difficult it is to get something financed and made, and it clearly seems connected to the fear, conscious or unconscious, that they will never have another chance to make a film their way. And they have a point, particularly where U.S. indie cinema is concerned. For every Wes Anderson, there are 25 or 30 people who never follow up their debut film and spend the rest of their lives directing episodes of "NCIS."

A Thousand and One is a very strong debut film, but it also succumbs to the error of rookie over-ambition. Rockwell is a genuine artistic voice, and I sincerely hope she is able to keep making feature films. This is the story of Inez (Teyana Taylor), a young woman who has just been released from Rikers. Her first order of business is finding and reconnecting with her son Terry (age 6: Aaron Kingsley Adetola), who has been placed in the NYC foster care system. Upon learning that he is in the hospital, having fallen out a window trying to get away from his latest foster mother, Inez takes the bold and desperate step of stealing him from the hospital and going into hiding. She is illegally reclaiming her son, and plans to give him the best life she can.

Rockwell divides her film into three acts, each corresponding to a particular period in Inez and Terry's lives. Over the course of twelve years, we see Terry grow up, Inez struggle with securing employment and housing, and come to a hard-won sense of self-worth. She marries her long-time boyfriend Lucky (William Catlett), who at first can't handle raising another man's kid but eventually becomes a true father to Terry. And despite their problems, Inez and Lucky help Terry (Josiah Cross) succeed in school. By the end of the film, it seems that he might be heading to Princeton to study engineering.

A Thousand and One explicitly takes place during the transformation of New York between the mayoralties of Giuliani and Bloomberg. We see one underprivileged family as their lives are impacted by anti-Black gentrification and racist police abuses, with lower income New Yorkers being forcefully squeezed out of the city. In the vein of Andrew Dominik's Killing Them Softly, the sociological and political backdrop serves as counterpoint to the day-to-day struggles of society's most vulnerable. This additional conceptual layer is subtle enough to deepen the lyrical realism of Inez's story.

But in the final half-hour, Rockwell introduces an honest-to-God plot twist, something that was not even hinted at throughout the earlier parts of the film. While I'm sure it made sense on paper -- part of the capitalist bourgeoisification of New York includes greater surveillance and documentation, ways to keep the poor in line -- it largely unravels much of what A Thousand and One had been patiently building up to that point. The thing is, Inez's final conversation with Terry explains why she did what she did, and in so doing, articulates Rockwell's thinking regarding the film's conclusion. 

However, if she had somehow threaded this idea throughout A Thousand and One, it could have made Inez's at times unwise decisions more affecting, poetically as well as polemically. With Rockwell's ample talent, she could have crafted a gritty, muted melodrama of maternal sacrifice, a Black Stella Dallas. Instead, it engages in narrative stuntsmanship, and the impact is deflating.