MOVIE REVIEW: A Thousand In One

Teyana Taylor excels at her opportunity to do as Angela Bassett and Viola Davis before her, portraying the Sapphire role that has been responsible for traumatizing and damaging so many U.S. melaninated males in A Thousand And One, a film with a title that boasts rarity, but is a story seen and lived far too many times in a reality where the U.S. allows melaninated households to be ran into the ground because they are designed to fail as a twisted matriarchy.

Set in New York City in a little over a decade long span starting from 1994, Taylor portrays, Inez – a criminal fresh out of Rikers determined to have the family that she never had, which includes kidnapping her adopted son and becoming heavily involved with a male from her past, who also did time who she periodically abuses.
As the film progresses, audiences are taken through Harlem and the issues that permeate the section of NYC from the late 90’s to the early 2000’s. From “Stop N’ Frisk” to the early beginnings of gentrification to the melting pot of the world, all of these instances are displayed in the environment surrounding the cast while abandoment issues and a lack of self respect with a strong sense of selfishness is present in all the characters, but most realized in Taylor’s Inez.

Taylor is a star, she lights up the screen with her seductive aura as good as she did back in Kanye West’s “Fade” to now in A Thousand In One eating a thing of Cup of Noodles while crying herself to sleep. Despite this, it still cannot be overlooked that her and the women she surrounds herself with in this fictional but all-to-real Harlem, are the sirens of this tale. Pure villains, that will allow the whole ship of their community to crash just to say “I Won!”.

From Kingsley Adetola, to Courtney, culminating with Crews these actors’ portrayal of Terry encapsulates the life of the young intellectual melaninated male in the States :

Silent, because anything intelligent within in his environment will be silenced by overbearing ignorance. Cast aside like trash from the womb to the female figures he courts in his pubescent years, all while being targeted as a poster child for criminality, despite having the top marks in the education system that is only step one to the remainder of the U.S. prison pipeline waiting for him.
Terry is a living, breathing “Message To The Black Man“. The only thing is, A.V. Rockwell (screenwriter and director of A Thousand And One) makes him accessible enough on screen even when his guard is all the way up, so that way audiences can empathize for him and others like him who rightfully keep their guard up from having came up in environments similar to this fictionalized and oft embellished drama. Mobb Deep, The Wu, Guru, D-Block, and even The Delfonics make their presence known throughout the film; sonic inspirations that had to have had a major bearing on Gary Gunn’s jazzy, yet somber, score.

An excellent display on how the melaninated women of the U.S. train their offspring to be emotional, distrusting, and insecure – A Thousand In One is Rockwell’s case study of the dysfunction that has pervaded the U.S. melaninated matriarchy as well as the forced trauma bonding that occurs within these female led factions, whether intentional or by learned behavior predicted when “The Willie Lynch Letter” was first published. Taylor will most likely at the least get an Oscar nomination for her role as the lead in this picture, but when she does, it should not be forgotten that this story of an immature, criminal who will do anything to be a mother out of her own selfish desires is built on the backs of depreciated U.S. melaninated males through the lens of a depreciated U.S. melaninated male.

So when melaninated females in the U.S. and around the globe, celebrate and revere Taylor for her soon-to-be award winning role, they should look in the reflection of the screen and see the monsters that they are, not that they will care because at the end of the day with a future Oscar nom that could turn into a win, that’s all that matters to them : everything is good as long as they “win”, even if they destroy what’s left of their community and poison others in the process.

Score : 4.5/5

Director: A.V. Rockwell
Stars: