A Thousand and One

Out of the thousands who could help, there was only one...
dir: A.V. Rockwell
2023
Life is hard, whether it’s today or 1994 New York, if you’re an ex-con. Especially if you’ve burned every bridge, and lost custody of your child, who ends up in the welfare – foster system.
A Thousand and One puts us in the unenviable position of watching a character who often does the worst possible thing in a given situation, and still hope that she’ll be able to find a way to get by and get through. It’s a hard balancing act, because she’s a complex character, and she is certain she’s doing the right thing, but most people who do stuff that turns out awful are certain they’re doing the right thing.
Inez (the formidable Teyana Taylor) is just out of Riker’s, and has nothing, and no place to stay. It’s the early 90s, so we have multiple scenes of her using a phonebook to try and call people that might still take her in for a while. At something called a “phone booth”, with that accordion glass door and all.
Drifting back to her Brooklyn neighbourhood, there are as many people who remember her skills with a hot comb, finger weaves and box braids, as remember her for whatever landed her in jail again.
She’s spying on someone in the neighbourhood that she’s likely enjoined by law not to approach, a little guy she calls T (Aaron Kingsley Adetola), for Terry. He can’t even make eye contact with her, but he knows who she is. Life in foster care doesn’t seem to be that enjoyable, which results in Terry spending some time in hospital, which gives mother and son more of a chance to bond, somehow, despite Terry’s constant fear that she’s going to disappear again.
Inez herself is a product of the foster system. I should just call it “The System”. Later on she’ll refer to it as being the reason why she is so hard, so uncompromising, so brittle and fierce.
The boy speaks of his earliest memory, of being abandoned by his mother on a street corner. Inez is stunned, and aflame from this, and embarks on a course of action as unwise as it is heartfelt.
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