It is Harlem in the early 1990s, and Inez (Teyana Taylor) sees her young son, Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola), who is in the foster system, on the street.  She begins to talk to the timid boy and eventually convinces him to come with her and the two run off to lay low with her friend Kim (Terri Abney) and her mother (Delissa Reynolds).  Unable to stay for too long, Inez moves around to a few apartments before settling down with her eventual husband, Lucky (William Catlett).  Meanwhile, Terry grows up (Aven Courtney, Josiah Cross) in a rapidly changing New York City during the 90s and early 2000s, and while he has tried to make a good life for himself with plans to go to school, the sins of his mother eventually catch up to him and leave him with few options to become the man she raised him to be. 

A.V. Rockwell debuted her first feature film, A Thousand and One, at Sundance where it was met with rave reviews walking away with the Grand Jury Prize and theatrical distribution from Focus Features.  The 117-minute film synthesizes the gentrification of a city and the struggles of a community down through the lens of a single family so that it feels at once deeply personal while telling a story the likes of which are still being played out in communities throughout the country to this day. 

The film starts off as Inez’s story, and for much of the run time, her narrative commands the screen and in every frame which Taylor inhabits all eyes are drawn to her performance.  Many of Inez’s secondary motivations remain unclear for the first half of the narrative, her true goal is to provide for Terry, but as Lucky becomes steadier and more present throughout, and they establish their home together, she can let down her guard with the audience and we can begin to see the trajectory she is taking. It opens up the world of the film and begins to show some more nuance in the motivations and desires of Inez which helps lend some context to what we are seeing. While Rockwell is not looking to hold the hands of her audience, A Thousand and One at times is undeniably underwritten with its focus and goals unclear which makes for a difficult entry into the film. We understand at the surface level what challenges Inez and Terry are facing, and their performances broker trust between us and the filmmaker to see it through, but it is not until much later in the film when Cross takes over as the eldest version of Terry, that things begin to really gel. 

Looking at the three Terrys, all serve different purposes in the story and it is not until he begins to stand up for himself and beat against the systems that the character begins to make sense in the story as not just the object of the inciting incident, but it is also when Rockwell is most sure of her script. Adetola is largely silent, a scared boy of six, he is pushed along by the force of Inez. The boy is unsure of what is happening much of the time having been ripped from what little stability he knew in the failing foster system, but slowly he begins to place his trust in Inez and opens up to her. The middle section of the film finds Terry, now thirteen years old, in a rough patch. Courtney has the task of dealing with a character that is just full of misplaced angst and rage. There are the smallest glimmers that he wants to be a better person, but Rockwell does not give the teenager enough to latch on to in order to build a character. To be fair, he does find himself now caught in the torrent of the changing times in the city instead of just the constant relocations his younger self was up against, so the lack of stability in a narrative sense checks out, but audiences are left desperate for some more guidance on where we are headed in this story. 

Finally, Terry is grown and in his last year of high school, a few weeks from turning eighteen. After his girlfriend Simmone (Alicia Pilgrim) moves to Flordia with her family, Terry finds himself even more lost than before with dwindling educational, social, and familiar prospects. He is tentatively given a part-time job offer from Mrs. Tucker (Amelia Workman), the school guidance counselor, and there is a sudden vigor that begins to motivate Terry in ways we have not seen until now. Even without a clear idea of where he is headed, he finally feels like he is on a viable path to anywhere but here. All that stands in his way is some paperwork for hire, documents which, through his unprocessed removal from the foster system, Inez is unable to produce. It is a heartbreaking and tragic reveal about how good intentions can sometimes run counter to the rule of law, and adding to the frustrating tragedy of it all, Rockwell does not tie the narrative up in a neat bow; a choice which really elevates the power of the ending of an investigative film that never teeters into the realm of poverty porn. After everything this family has been through – the death of Lucky, the collapsing apartment – they have nothing to show for it, and soon they will not even have each other to lean on for support. Yes, the film is about a city that has failed its residents, but it is also about a family that is trying to do right, only to be torn apart by the systems in place.  

It is often said of these types of stories that the city becomes a character, and as cliché a statement as that is, New York City with all of its changing population and politics have heavy influence over the flow of the narrative. With excerpts of speeches from Rudy Giuliani and Bill de Blasio while Eric K. Yue’s camera captures the changing city to the inspired beat of Gary Gunn’s pounding score, the film captures the essence of a home turning into an unfamiliar, commercialized, and punishingly capitalist landscape, rapidly becoming devoid of its individuality and its humanity as it pushes out those who have lived in these buildings, some for generations. It is a broad-reaching story as the late effects of gentrification are still affecting communities across the country today, and it is also not too far removed from a growing systemic failure of the country to provide for its citizens that led to the DREAM Act, A Thousand and One is a film that shows how difficult it can be for the marginalized people to achieve the so-called “American Dream” when they are always the ones hardest hit by the laws and regulations of the land so that the rich get richer while being praised for “cleaning up the streets.” 

Rockwell has set the bar incredibly high for herself, and though the film finds moments where it is a little unsure of where to point the camera or who is leading the narrative, her singular voice always shines through even when the filmmaking falters. It is still too early in her career, and admittedly a little hyperbolic, to compare Rockwell’s debut feature with the work of Spike Lee, but the two creatives are unwavering in their calling out against systems of oppression. While Lee takes bolder swings with some more shocking imagery to ignite conversation, Rockwell is, likewise, unashamed to put these same systems under the microscope through the lens of searing drama. She strips away the barriers and shows her characters as humans, suffering yet resilient, but she does not dilute her characters, the Mise-en-scène, or the story so that the work never loses that lived-in sense, and we are feeling the same painful emotions along with her. A Thousand and One may not be a biopic or a memoir, but that does not mean that it is not a true story.