Sundance review: 'A Thousand and One' is a passionate debut for filmmaker A.V. Rockwell, and a showcase for star Teyana Taylor

Nearly overspilling with heartfelt emotion, writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s feature debut “A Thousand and One” is gut-wrenching drama of a woman’s desperation and a child’s blossoming against the odds.

The story starts in 1994, in New York City at the beginning of the Rudy Giuliani era. Inez (played by singer/actress Teyana Taylor) is just released from Riker’s Island, and eager to get her life back on track. Part of that involves getting 6-year-old Terry (played by Aaron Kingsley Adetola) out of foster care and setting up a home in Harlem. Inez plucks Terry without going through the proper legal channels — which includes obtaining a fake birth certificate and Social Security number, so Terry can enroll in school under a new name.

After a rough start, with Inez and Terry losing their tempers at each other, they find some temporary accommodations — first with Inez’s friend Kim (Terri Abney), whose mother (Delissa Reynolds) is none too happy about the situation, and later in a boarding house of sorts run by Miss Annie (played by Tony winner Adriane Lenox). Eventually, Inez finds an apartment that they can find home.

Not long after, Inez invites her man, Lucky (Will Catlett), also a recent resident at Riker’s, to be the third member of the household. It’s a rough beginning, as Lucky and Terry — who has always had questions about who or where his father is — slowly warm to each other.

The story jumps ahead to 2001, and later to 2005, with Aven Courtney and Josiah Cross playing Terry at 13 and 17, respectively. During this span, Rockwell depicts how Harlem is changing — first with Giuliani’s stop-and-frisk policing and later with Michael Bloomberg prodding the neighborhood toward gentrification — and, with it, both Terry’s and Inez’s futures are thrown into upheaval.

Rockwell — who directed a short (“Feathers”) that played Sundance in 2019 and made a Super Bowl ad with Serena Williams (for Bumble) — makes a ferociously assured debut as a feature director. She reassembles Harlem of the ‘90s and aughts with just a few brushstrokes, while keeping laser focus on the intense human story in the foreground. The pacing, the twisty plot, and the dialogue all point to a filmmaker with a strong voice and a sensitive ear.

“A Thousand and One” is also a showcase for Taylor, who’s also known as a singer, choreographer and music-video director who has worked with Beyonce, Kanye West and Missy Elliot, among others. (She also is the youngest-ever winner of “The Masked Singer.”) Taylor gives a stellar performance as Inez, who hustles to make money to give Terry a better life, and doesn’t back down when anyone challenges her on her mothering skills.

Together, Rockwell gives Taylor the platform from which she can shine as Inez, and Taylor gives Rockwell the spark to make her words sing. “A Thousand and One” is the sort of movie we’ll look back on, for both director and star, and say we saw them when they were just getting started.

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‘A Thousand and One’

★★★★

Playing in the U.S. Dramatic competition of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Screening online on the Sundance Film Festival platform, through Sunday, Jan. 29, at 11:55 p.m. Also scheduled to be released in theaters on March 31, 2023. Not rated, but probably R for language and some sexual content. Running time: 117 minutes.