A recent film starring Teyana Taylor. Taylor finding herself jobless after being paroled from prison decides to head back to her New York stomping grounds during the 1990's. Hoping to restart her career as a hairstylist, Taylor encounters a young boy hanging out in the streets while she hands out fliers advocating her talents. Feeling sorry for the boy, she takes him under her wing & brings her home, telling any & all the boy is her own. Acting as an anchor against falling back into her wayward ways Taylor soon prospers, finds a man, William Catlett from Black Lightning, & as the years pass & the family goes through different adversities (Catlett gets cancer, a new owner to her apartment promises repairs which never come, etc.) the boy, now a young man, played by Josiah Cross, is about to graduate from high school when he finds out that he was abducted by Taylor all those years ago & the authorities are interested in speaking to Taylor who's gone missing. W/the final reel looming, the expected confrontation between mother & child is foremost on the audience's mind. Taking place through a tumultuous period in New York soon becomes so much organic fodder for our characters who move from one trial by fire to the next in adept ellipses of time, keeping the viewer enthralled as to the mother/son relationship but then the whole child kidnapping angle comes back into the picture which almost seems like an afterthought (the cops want to lay hands on Taylor yet she saunters to & from her apartment w/o a care) leaving poor Cross w/an incredible weight on his shoulders to bear which he handles like a champ but as a whole burdens the film needlessly when there was more than enough drama to go around.
Review of A Thousand and One
