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A.V. Rockwell’s “A Thousand and One” was the somewhat surprising winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance a couple of months ago, a trophy taken home by major movies like “ CODA ” and “ Whiplash ” in past years. While other films were considered frontrunners, it feels like Rockwell’s heartfelt drama took the prize largely because of the sheer force of its central performance, a true breakout for Teyana Taylor . It’s easily one of the best performances so far this year, one of those turns in which you have to remind yourself that you’re watching an actress—that’s how completely she fades into the character, a woman who makes some tough decisions to protect her son. Taylor has a remarkable ability to be present in a scene, responding as if she’s interacting in the moment, not reciting rehearsed lines or blocked movement. She's organic in a way that elevates a script that has some significant structural problems and battles credulity in the final act. She's so good that, by that time, you won’t care. You’ll be too invested in her story to question where it ends.

Taylor’s Inez is a New York resident returning from Rikers Island when the film opens. Only 22 years old, she carries herself with the determination of someone who has already lived so much life and knows what she needs to get through this tough world. What she needs more than ever is her son Terry (played by Aaron Kingsley Adetola , Aven Courtney , and Josiah Cross at 6, 13, and 17, respectively), but he’s been in the foster system while Inez was behind bars. When six-year-old Terry has an accident that lands him in the hospital, Inez makes the impulsive but understandable decision to take him home. Who could possibly raise him better? And what’s one more kid out of a broken foster system, one that damaged Inez too?

Inez forces Terry to change his name and not tell anyone about his background. And yet “A Thousand and One” is less of a thriller than that synopsis might suggest. Inez and Terry share a secret that defines their relationship, something that bonds them as their NY neighborhood shifts and changes around them over the ‘90s. Rockwell regularly uses sound bites and news items to convey the energy of NYC in this era and comments on the gentrifying world around Inez. It gives her arc the tenor of a survival story by making her the rock-solid center of a world that spins around her. She’s not on a set. She’s in the real world that’s zipping by her as she holds so tightly to her child.

Inez eventually marries a man named Lucky, played by William Catlett . But the film centers on the Inez/Terry dynamic, giving the traditional mother/son drama a new structure by emphasizing how quickly it could be taken away. Without turning it into a genre piece, the decision that Inez makes and the secret that Terry has to hide creates a symbolic urgency to their relationship. Every mother worries their son could be taken away by violence or tragedy, but Inez has to raise her boy in a world where that threat is more immediate. We have seen dozens of stories about single mothers who overcome adversity, but the narrative here makes it feel new again as we feel Inez’s tough decisions and how they shape Terry’s worldview.

Much of that veracity collapses in a final act I’m not sure the film needs. Without spoiling, there’s another secret in Inez and Terry’s life that completely recasts everything that came before in a different light, and the narrative decision pushed me out of a story that had felt so intimate for so long. The movie doesn’t need a twist. It’s done so much to make Inez, Terry, and the world they inhabit feel real; it's a splash of cold water to be reminded this is a melodrama, and maybe always was. The final scenes are manipulative in a fashion that the movie otherwise defies for most of its runtime.

However, Teyana Taylor holds her head high through it all. Even as the film falters narratively, she’s a force of nature embodying a person more than just playing a role. She captures the soul of a woman who knows her son needs her to navigate this dangerous world. And that she needs him too.

In theaters now.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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A Thousand and One (2023)

Rated R for language.

116 minutes

Teyana Taylor as Inez

William Catlett as Lucky

Josiah Cross as Terry

Aven Courtney as Terry (Age 13)

Aaron Kingsley Adetola as Terry (Age 6)

Terri Abney as Kim Jones

Delissa Reynolds as Mrs. Jones

Amelia Workman as Anita Tucker

Adriane Lenox as Miss Annie

Gavin Schlosser as Pea (Age 6)

Jolly Swag as Pea (Age 13)

Azza El as Simone (Age 14)

Alicia Pilgrim as Simone

Jennean Farmer as Ms. Janie (Foster Mom)

Kal-El White as Shawn (Foster Brother)

Jamier Williams as Michael H. (Foster Brother)

A.V. Rockwell

Cinematographer

Sabine Hoffman
Kristan Sprague

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A Thousand and One

2023, Drama, 1h 57m

What to know

Critics Consensus

A tribute to parental devotion and a testament to Teyana Taylor's talent, A Thousand and One presents a heart-wrenching portrait of perseverance in the face of systemic inequity. Read critic reviews

Audience Says

A tough watch that might frustrate some with its ending, A Thousand and One is still well worth checking out for terrific performances and a thought-provoking perspective on poverty. Read audience reviews

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A thousand and one videos, a thousand and one photos.

A THOUSAND AND ONE follows unapologetic and free-spirited Inez (Teyana Taylor), who kidnaps six-year-old Terry from the foster care system. Holding onto their secret and each other, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City.

Rating: R (Language)

Genre: Drama

Original Language: English

Director: A.V. Rockwell

Producer: Eddie Vaisman , Julia Lebedev , Lena Waithe , Rishi Rajani , Brad Weston

Writer: A.V. Rockwell

Release Date (Theaters): Mar 31, 2023 wide

Release Date (Streaming): Apr 18, 2023

Box Office (Gross USA): $3.4M

Runtime: 1h 57m

Distributor: Focus Features

Production Co: Universal Films, Sight Unseen Pictures, Makeready, Hillman Grad

Cast & Crew

Teyana Taylor

Inez de la Paz

Aaron Kingsley Adetola

Terry 6 Years Old

Aven Courtney

Terry 13 Years Old

Josiah Cross

Terry 17 Years Old

William Catlett

Terri Abney

Delissa Reynolds

Amelia Workman

Anita Tucker

Adriane Lenox

Tara Pacheco

A.V. Rockwell

Screenwriter

Eddie Vaisman

Julia Lebedev

Lena Waithe

Rishi Rajani

Brad Weston

Oren Moverman

Executive Producer

Rachel Jacobs

Leonid Lebedev

Jamin O'Brien

Cinematographer

Sabine Hoffmann

Film Editing

Kristan Sprague

Original Music

Sharon Lomofsky

Production Design

Lauren Crawford

Set Decoration

Melissa Vargas

Costume Design

Avy Kaufman

News & Interviews for A Thousand and One

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Directors Guild (DGA) Nominations 2024

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Movie Reviews

A mother faces 'a thousand and one' obstacles in this unconventional nyc film.

Justin Chang

Teyana Taylor and Aaron Kingsley Adetola play a mother and son in A Thousand and One. Sundance Institute hide caption

Teyana Taylor and Aaron Kingsley Adetola play a mother and son in A Thousand and One.

A Thousand and One begins in 1994, shortly before a 22-year-old woman named Inez is released from Rikers Island. We don't know much about her, but Teyana Taylor , the electrifying actor who plays her, tells us plenty just from the brashly confident way Inez strides through her old Brooklyn stomping grounds after a year away.

As she greets old friends and looks for work as a hairdresser, Inez is determined to put the past behind her — though that becomes impossible when she runs into her 6-year-old son, Terry, on the street. Terry was sent to foster care when Inez went to prison, and while he resents her for leaving him, he'd clearly rather be with her again than in his current situation.

And so when Terry has an accident at home, Inez impulsively springs him from the hospital and takes him to the Harlem neighborhood where she grew up. They lie low for a while, though it soon becomes sadly clear that nobody's really looking for Terry, who's just one of many kids who've slipped through the cracks of the foster-care system. Inez grew up in that system herself, and she wants to give Terry the loving home she never had.

Soon she finds them a rundown Harlem apartment — the number on the door, 10-01, is one explanation for the movie's title. Over the next several years, this apartment will be their home, but it's a precarious one, where every happy moment feels both fleeting and hard-won.

Inez works long hours to provide for herself and Terry, a gifted student whose teachers think he could be Ivy League material. Eventually, Inez marries Lucky, an old boyfriend played by a charismatic William Catlett. While not the most faithful husband, Lucky becomes a genuinely loving father figure to Terry.

Terry is played at ages 6, 13 and 17 by the actors Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney and Josiah Cross. The use of three actors to play a young Black man at different ages has already earned the movie comparisons to Barry Jenkins ' sublime 2016 drama, Moonlight . But those similarities aside, A Thousand and One focuses more specifically on the young man's mother. Taylor, an R&B performer in her first leading film role, conveys the full weight of Inez's sacrifices. By the end, the sensual, free-spirited woman we met in the opening scenes has become visibly sadder and wearier, though still possessed of the same devil-may-care defiance.

If A Thousand and One were just a story about a mother and son overcoming the odds, it would be moving enough. But the writer-director A.V. Rockwell, making a strong feature debut after years directing shorts and music videos, gives this intimate drama a sharp sociopolitical context. Even as Inez and Terry grow older, the city around them is changing, too. At the beginning, the Harlem we see pulses with grit and energy, shot in a vibrantly kinetic style and set to a '90s hip-hop beat. By the end, the neighborhood has been gentrified beyond recognition, as reflected in the movie's cooler, gloomier palette and its many shots of anonymous-looking office and residential buildings.

Rockwell doesn't shy away from detailing how these shifts have impacted communities of color in general, and Inez and Terry in particular. They're gradually forced out of their apartment by a new landlord who wants to tear the building down. Terry and his friends face routine police harassment — a development that Rockwell intersperses with real news clips covering Mayor Giuliani's embrace of "stop and frisk" policies .

None of this comes off as didactic; Rockwell deftly weaves her commentary into a story that turns out to be less conventional and more surprising than it looks. She also reminds us that there's more to both Inez and Terry than their tough circumstances. We see this in the playful scenes of 17-year-old Terry flirting with a girl behind a restaurant counter, or the poignant moment when Inez — rather than picking a fight with one of Lucky's girlfriends, as she might have once done — instead treats her with decency and grace.

Rockwell has such a sure grasp of her characters and their complexities that she's able to end the story on a boldly unresolved note. I left the movie thinking about what might lie ahead for Inez and Terry, and feeling grateful for the time I'd spent in their company.

Review: ‘A Thousand and One’ offers a gritty New York story of survival

A woman looks back over her shoulder while standing next to a car on a city street

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Mothers are often the keepers of secrets, borne from a primal instinct for survival. But secrets fester, grow bigger and inevitably burst with the resonance of truth, as they do in “A Thousand and One,” the debut feature of writer/director A.V. Rockwell . The film, which won the U.S. dramatic grand jury prize at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, casts the harrowing story of a mother and her son against the backdrop of a gentrifying Harlem.

“A Thousand and One” proves to be a showcase for multihyphenate star and Harlem native Teyana Taylor, who brings to her astonishing performance the coiled physicality of a panther ready to pounce. Her character, Inez, is on the offense as her only form of defense, a stance and ethos that never wavers throughout the years we follow her.

Sweeping aerial shots set to soulful strings introduce us to the iconography of New York City: the Empire State Building, Central Park and, of course, Rikers Island, holding New York City’s largest jail. It’s 1994 and we meet the incarcerated Inez in a tender moment: gently applying makeup to another female inmate. Soon, she’s released back on the streets of Harlem, hawking her services as a hairstylist and desperately trying to stay out of the shelter.

Her swift, confident movements are captured in snippets of grainy, handheld images. Cinematographer Eric K. Yue also employs pans and zooms that harken back to the New Hollywood films of the 1970s, placing this film in a long lineage of gritty New York City indie filmmaking.

A man carries a boy on his shoulder in front of a row of apartment buildings

A wrinkle in Inez’s survival story manifests, a wrinkle that soon becomes her purpose and her driving force: her young boy Terry (the wonderfully instinctive Aaron Kingsley Adetola), who is living in foster care. When an accident lands him in the hospital, Inez works her way back into his heart with Power Rangers toys and quality time. She asks if he’d like to come stay with her for a bit — a son should live with his mother, after all. They crash at a friend’s, and eventually land their own spot in a brownstone, Inez doing hair in her room for cash. Since she’s essentially abducted him from the government, she pays a guy for a fake birth certificate for Terry, who goes by Darryl at school.

The story of Terry and Inez and, later, Lucky ( William Catlett ), her boyfriend who becomes a father figure for Terry, is a simple one. But the lived-in quality of the material makes this story feel so real, and almost stranger than fiction at times. It’s not a true story, but it comes from a place of truth, and in her writing and direction Rockwell brings a hyper-specificity to the film, whether in the way young Terry passes the time alone at home, or in the fumbling courtships he undertakes as a teen (played by Aven Courtney). It’s in the speeches that Lucky and Inez deliver to Terry about striving for more beyond what they experienced, which manage to never seem phony or labored.

The film is utterly absorbing, anchored by the unpredictable performance of Taylor, playing a hopelessly complicated, but deeply caring woman. When faced with dire circumstances, she survives, then dares to imagine a life for Terry beyond the cycle she’s experienced, forging a family unit she never had. Through sheer willpower, she gets them to a point where she can see his bright future; yet when 17-year-old Terry (a remarkable Josiah Cross) finds himself inadvertently repeating some of his mother’s actions in 2005, it seems a grim kind of fate.

WEST HOLLYWOOD-CA-MARCH 23, 2023: Director AV Rockwell of A THOUSAND AND ONE, a film that follows a young mother and her son grow together in an unforgiving New York City, is photographed at The London Hotel in West Hollywood on March 23, 2023. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Gentrification can suck the ‘vitality’ out of a city. This new film captures how

Filmmaker A.V. Rockwell and star Teyana Taylor open up about their ‘heartbreak letter’ and Sundance prizewinner ‘A Thousand and One,’ opening Friday.

March 30, 2023

There are larger forces at play beyond the decisions Inez made out of fear and anxiety when she was 22 and fresh out of jail. The home she’s made starts to crumble in tandem with the fracturing of their family unit. Their new landlord puts on a helpful face and offers to fix things, but underneath his smiling exterior, seems to want them gone, the home eventually becoming inhospitable when Terry needs it the most.

Rockwell evolves the film’s style over the years, using the ghostly aerial shots of the city as a stylistic motif and device to situate the viewer and signify time bleeding into the atmosphere. During a climactic conversation between Terry and Inez, all color has been drained from the image, the two pictured in stark contrast to the white walls. All that is left between them is the messy, complicated truth, though the shades of gray are thrown into shocking black and white.

“A Thousand and One” is a fascinating portrait of the maternal, feminine instinct caught in an unforgiving world. Taylor’s Inez, possessed of a hard-bitten skill for self-preservation, stays one step ahead, constantly moving forward, a soft shred of hope her only cold comfort.

Katie Walsh is Tribune News Service film critic.

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Josiah Cross stars as seventeen year old "Terry" in writer/director A.V. Rockwell's A THOUSAND AND ONE, released by Focus Features. Credit: Courtesy of Aaron Ricketts/Focus Features

Josiah Cross’ delicate dance with scene partner Teyana Taylor in ‘A Thousand and One’

Jan. 9, 2024

Teyana Taylor stars in AV Rockwell's "A Thousand and One"

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‘a thousand and one’ review: teyana taylor powerfully embodies a woman’s fight to keep home and family together.

Writer-director A.V. Rockwell’s feature debut is a volatile account of a mother-son relationship set against the vivid backdrop of rapidly gentrifying 1990s New York.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Teyana Taylor Is Showing Us She’s a Movie Star

It’s a shame that our go-to superlative for great acting is that it’s worthy of an Oscar, because the performance Teyana Taylor gives in A Thousand and One is of a sort that the Oscars rarely notice. The role of Inez, a born-and-bred New Yorker who’s fresh from Rikers and searching for her son, Terry, when the film begins, doesn’t involve an elaborate physical transformation or the channeling of a well-known historical figure. Inez, who learned early on to approach the world with her fists raised, can erupt into anger, but A Thousand and One ’s most momentous developments — like Inez’s decision to grab Terry out of foster care in Brooklyn and whisk him away to Harlem, where she grew up — unfold in a quiet fashion that does not lend itself to awards reels. But there’s a majesty to the character, and to how intensely Taylor inhabits her, that has nothing to do with speeches and everything to do with watching life leave its marks on her in real time.

Inez, who spends a decade struggling to carve a home for herself and her son out of nothing, doesn’t often have the luxury of feeling secure enough to look ahead and start planning for the future. Fittingly, there’s never a moment in the film — which begins in 1994, when Inez is 22, and ends 11 years later, when Terry is 17 — in which it feels like Taylor is anticipating what’s to come for her character. It’s acting that feels wide open, exposed to every twist of fate and rare marvel Inez encounters. A Thousand and One is the first feature from writer-director A.V. Rockwell, and it’s also the rare one to feel like it would have benefited from the longer runway of a TV show — if a TV show like this could ever get green-lit. From its start, when Inez effectively abducts her kid, Rockwell never chooses the obvious route in her sweeping story. That inciting incident would seem to set up the two of them on the lam. Instead, in a development that’s more clear-eyed than cynical, no one in the beleaguered system appears to register Terry’s absence. “Why’s nobody looking for me?” the boy, who’s played by Aaron Kingsley Adetola as a child and by Aven Courtney and Josiah Cross as a teenager, murmurs with something close to affront while watching kids playing by the school he can’t attend.

In foster care, Terry ended up in the hospital after some uncertain act of abuse or neglect. And while Inez may love him, their life together is marked by its own precariousness. In a sequence reminiscent of Hirokazu Koreeda’s Nobody Knows, he spends the day alone while she’s at work, jumping on the sofa and lounging in front of the TV in the remnants of his spilled cereal, a montage of childhood boredom with an undercurrent of dread. But again, Rockwell doesn’t opt for the expected turn, showing a capacity for generosity that extends to Inez’s on-and-off boyfriend Lucky (William Catlett), who turns up in the living room one day like an ill omen, only to grow into a complicated but treasured presence in Terry’s life. A Thousand and One strides forward across the years, accompanied by news feeds as the Giuliani era gives way to the ascendance of Mike Bloomberg, the audio playing over shots of boarded-up buildings that are then replaced by condos and chain stores. The film’s title refers to the number of the Harlem apartment that Inez, Lucky, and Terry share (the dash in the middle having fallen off), a hard-won sanctuary that’s gradually threatened by the city’s changes.

It’s clear the film has displacement on its mind long before Inez stands on the sidewalk, skeptically eyeing a new white neighbor. But the characters come first, and impassive economic forces become only the latest in a line of threats to their existence rather than the film’s thematic center. The score, by Gary Gunn, quivers with anticipation rather than foreboding. Rockwell does sometimes rush things — there’s a thread about the misogynoir that teen Terry absorbs from the atmosphere around him, for instance, that could have been its own chapter. Yet A Thousand and One is rich and complex overall, the saga of someone battling to build a family and a stable home with no real experience of what that looks like. “Where are your people?” a woman Inez is trying to rent a room from asks her, and while we know that she bounced from foster care to group homes to shelters, nothing prepares you for her plaintive admission that “I lost them,” as though she’d been tumbled through systems long enough for any connections to be buffed away.

Taylor, who made a multipronged ascent to fame through music and reality TV, has been an occasional actor, but this lead role is really something else — one that requires her to be tenacious, contradictory, adaptable, and raw, and to grow up alongside the son she’s determined to raise right. Her Inez, with soaring cheekbones and belly-baring ’90s fashion, can look larger than life, but she’s just one person trying to find her way through an indifferent city. It’s the way Taylor makes you feel this smallness, and the character’s determination to succeed despite it, that you remember.

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Movie Review: 'A Thousand and One' the year's first great film

Tom Santilli is a professional film critic, TV personality, host and the Executive Producer of Movie Show Plus. Twitter: @tomsantilli [twitter.com] | Movie Show Plus [movieshowplus.com]

A stellar achievement both in storytelling and in acting, "A Thousand and One" lands as one of the year's best films, and one that will linger with you well beyond the ending credits.

Grade: A- Writer/Director A.V. Rockwell becomes an instant front-runner for "breakthrough" talent of the year. In this, her first feature-film, she creates a raw and emotional story about a family, set against a backdrop of an ever-changing New York City. Equally brilliant is the lead performance from Teyana Taylor, who has been on the scene for years as a singer, actress and choreographer, but who will soon rocket to fame after people discover her performance in this film.

"A Thousand and One" takes place over several years, first introducing us to Inez (Taylor) when she is released from prison in 1994. Glad to be out but with not much waiting for her on the outside, Inez is still shackled by her past. She's a talented hair-dresser but nobody wants the baggage she carries. Inez attempts to reunite with her six-year-old son, Terry, who has been swept up into the foster care system with Inez away.

Things get...complicated, but never manipulative. It's a broken system to be sure, but Inez makes a choice to take Terry with her, unbeknownst to his newly appointed foster parents or those in power. She raises the boy (the film's title is in reference to the small, beat-up apartment that they call home, the apartment number so damaged that it just reads as "1001").

Terry is played by three different actors across three different time periods: Aaron Kingsley Adetola as a child, Aven Courtney as a teen, and Josiah Cross as a young man on the cusp of 18. This is his story as much as it's Inez's, as the two represent the broken dreams - and the broken promises - that are effectively churned out of our American way of life.

There's a sort of doom that hangs over the story, permeating each moment. This can't end well, we're thinking. Inez is represented not as some glorified martyr but as a real woman, complete with a whole hell of a lot of flaws and vices. When her on-again-off-again hook-up, Lucky (William Catlett) comes into the picture, he makes it clear to her that raising Terry was not part of the plan.

It's at this point in the story where things shift, completely subverting our expectations and pulling us in directions we never saw coming. Lucky isn't the type of character that we think he'll be. He has many facets and is full of surprises.

So is "A Thousand and One." It's unflinching in its depiction of this mother and the world in which she finds refuge, for her and for her son. Sins of the past become sins of the present. What's going on in the larger, outside world is weaved into Inez's story, but the bigger picture is in the peripheral. All that matters to Inez, and so many others in similar positions of poverty and racial inequality, is what is going on front-and-center.

Whomever came up with the "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" moniker might be reminded of the famous quote by Martin Luther King Jr. who said in response to this that: "...It's a cruel jest to say [this] to a bootless man."

There are more than a thousand and one reasons to see this film, so just make sure you do.

Grade: A-Genre: Drama, Crime. Run Time: 1 hour 57 minutes. Rated R.S tarring: Teyana Taylor, Terri Abney, Delissa Reynolds, William Catlett, Amelia Workman, Aven Courtney, Josiah Cross, Aaron Kingsley Adetola. Written and Directed by A.V. Rockwell (feature-film debut). "A Thousand and One" is in theaters on Friday, March 31st, 2023.

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'1001 Nunakal' film review: Stimulating, ingeniously constructed family drama

Have you ever looked at ‘happy’ pictures of couples on social media and wondered if they’re genuinely happy? Is either partner harbouring a lie of which the other isn’t aware? What if both are privy to some information that could cause -- to borrow a Vadivelu phrase -- “total damage” to both? I was recently discussing, with a friend, the subject of married couples whose partnership is built on lies -- how, in some cases, a secret revealed a decade or two later inflicts irrevocable trauma. I imagined the nightmare of the individual of either gender who suddenly faces the grim thought of dealing with the after-effects. How well do couples know each other?

Some ardent cinephiles may be already familiar with the 2016 Italian film Perfect Strangers (or its numerous remakes), in which a bunch of friends get together for dinner one night and start a game where each has to place their phones on the table. The basic idea? To find out if one of them is cheating. (Recently, we saw a murder mystery variation of this in Jeethu Joseph’s 12th Man.) Both these films make one ask a thought-provoking question: Are successful relationships those where some truths are best kept hidden? Is being completely transparent practically possible?

Thamar’s 1001 Nunakal might invite comparisons to the above films on account of dealing with a similar scenario -- of couples caught in a truth-telling situation. But it’s also original as the treatment and plotting differ remarkably from the aforementioned films. In fact, I found it way more interesting than 12th Man -- I won’t tell you whether someone gets murdered or not -- and on par with Perfect Strangers with regard to the believability, the characters brought to their table, and how convincingly they sell their dynamic.

At the film’s mid-point, when these characters are already in the middle of the game, one character reminds the other that it’s better to continue it after putting the barbecue in their garden to work lest they miss out on the pleasures of it. It’s almost as though this barbecue is analogous to the ‘burn’ some of them are already feeling because, by that point, a few illusions get shattered, with increasing intensity. After all, it all began with an apartment fire, the butterfly effect of which impacts every character.

Barring a few external scenes, 1001 Nunakal is primarily a chamber drama without a boring second, thanks to the competent turns from all the lead performers and the fluidity with which their conversations move from one scene to the next. I would’ve loved to mention every actor and the manner in which they wonderfully contribute to the film, but, I’m also wary of giving away anything considering how unpredictability seems to have been the primary intention behind the casting choices. The risk of preconceived notions is absent here and works to the film’s advantage. 1001 Nunakal functions like two movies -- or rather, one short movie and a big one -- with the conflict of one clashing with that of the second.

Interestingly, despite the close proximity of characters from both stories, the screenplay finds enough ways to subvert our expectations with regard to how everything pans out between them. Thamar makes the dynamic of one couple painfully evident in a short span while leaving everyone else’s a mystery. All these characters are occasionally framed in tight shots to evoke a sense of oppression; despite the spaciousness of their wealthy host’s (Vishnu Agasthya) home, one begins to sense each character feeling stifled by their predicaments. The camera, like an unseen observer, is as eager to see everyone spill their secrets as much as the one who initiated the game. Even when one character speaks, every other character remains in our vision because reaction shots and wide framing ensure their compulsory participation.

Out of all the performers, maybe I should single out the excellent Sudheesh Scaria for standing out as the advocate friend of the family who shows up as the personification of a truth serum -- the initiator of the game, much to the chagrin of all his friends who showed up that night and now wish they hadn’t. But at the same time, it wouldn’t be fair to dismiss this character as a ‘negative’ considering how he manages to pull off a soul purification process and, thereby, lightening the load of a character or two, regardless of how their lives would proceed after that one night. However, there’s an ambiguous quality to this character that can be a topic for a stimulating discussion.

As a whole, 1001 Nunakal is an impressive debut shot with the finesse of a veteran. It has as much -- or almost the same -- depth as the intense family dramas of Asghar Farhadi or, to take the example of a Malayalam cinema veteran, KG George, keeping in mind how the characters in their stories are visibly transformed -- for good or bad -- by forces not of their own making.

Film: 1001 Nunakal Director: Thamar KV Cast: Vishnu Agasthya, Sudheesh Scaria, Remya Suresh, Zhinz Shan Streamer: SonyLIV Rating: 4/5

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1001 Nunakal

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mahesh nair padmanabhan 15 232 days ago

Very good movie. Good direction and script. Most of the actors acted very good

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1001 Nunakal
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The smartest thing about the script is despite the game of telling secrets being unpleasant for each couple, the story proceeds fairly believably with the next one feeling almost driven to share

1001 Nunakal Movie Review: A gripping drama on marriage & friendships

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mahesh nair padmanabhan 15 232 days ago

Very good movie. Good direction and script. Most of the actors acted very good

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This film marks the first collaboration of uncle-nephew duo Anil Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor. Arjun is the son of Anil’s brother Boney Kapoor. Share
This film marks the first collaboration of uncle-nephew duo Anil Kapoor and Arjun Kapoor. Arjun is the son of Anil’s brother Boney Kapoor.
This is the second time Arjun Kapoor is playing a double role, the first being Aurangzeb (2013).
The song ‘Yamma yamma’ from ‘Shaan’ is sampled in the song ‘Partywali Night' for the film.

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Thousand and One Lies (1001 Nunakal, 2023) Movie Review – An Engaging film which Questions the Parochial Meanings of Truth, Lies, Deception and Trust

A false fabrication of twisted words with alternate meanings intended to deceive someone for personal gain or what they believe to be the ‘greater good’: commonly referred to as a lie. How dangerous is a lie? Why do we, as humans, as seekers of truth and justice, resolve to lie? What are its long-term repercussions? What does lying say about the liar? While generally taught that lying is bad, it is human nature to withhold the truth in certain situations that benefit oneself and sometimes for the sake of others. Lying represents fear. Fear of loneliness, rejection, embarrassment, and judgment. Thamar’s Aayirathonnu Nunakal (1001 Nunakal, Translated to Thousand and One Lies, 2023) explores these aspects surrounding lies and secrets to raising potent questions on the sacrifice of truth involved in forging and sustaining relationships.

Thousand and One Lies (1001 Nunakal, 2023) Plot

When a fire breaks out in their apartment building in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, Rajesh, and his family seek asylum with friends Vinay and Divya, along with Mujeeb and Salma, who encounter. Upon realizing that it is Vinay’s and Divya’s 10th wedding anniversary the next day, the three couples and along with two others and a mutual friend of theirs, decide to celebrate it together. The film follows the revealing of the many secrets shared amongst the couples and the personal revelations this results in as they reinvent themselves in the eyes of each other. It becomes a cathartic release of pent-up emotions and frustrations to some extent that is distasteful at times but eventually becomes healing and introspective.

1001 Nunakal is predominantly set in a single location and therefore demands a lot more from the screenplay and individual performances to carry the narrative and keep audiences engaged. With the main characters all being played by new faces and the director himself having his debut production, there was even more pressure on the screenplay to shine through. Mostly focusing on the dynamics between heterosexual couples; some in new relationships, some old, some created through an arranged marriage, and some antithetical to even the idea of marriage, the film provides various case studies on how gendered roles arise from the intersection of tradition, class and religion.

Also, Read: 25 Greatest Malayalam Movies of All Time

For example, in the case of Rajesh and Soumya, Rajesh is unemployed while Soumya works as a nurse. This tilts the gendered power scale in favor of Soumya is, the breadwinner of the family. Rajesh feels insecure as his stereotypical role as the masculine protector of the family is subverted due to his unemployment. In another instance, the husband of the couple invests extra time and effort to shower his wife with love and affection to make up for his inability to provide her with a child.

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But as the story progresses, we are informed of how it is actually the wife who is unable to bear the child and not the inability of the husband. This causes psychological turmoil and a momentary loss of trust. The film is laden with many such events. Still, it seems to forward a narrative of how all such insecurities are usual in relationships and that it is human to err but that there is an overall need to be empathetic and understanding rather than being egoistic and vengeful.

The use of 6 couples allows the film to represent various social diversities as well. Out of the 13 central characters, we are presented with various regional slangs of Malayalam ranging from Kannur, Kottayam, and Thiruvananthapuram dialects. Despite focusing on Malayalee migrants in UAE, characters represent diverse cultural and class backgrounds from their varied upbringings in Kerala, which inform their divergent sensibilities as well. For example, Joshy and Aleena, the youngest couple in Vinay’s friend circle, embody a more progressive sensibility when it comes to marriage and the role of women in a family.

Aleena, the young feminist archetype, argues for women to exercise their right to divorce in a more aggressive manner and dismiss the role of women as ‘symbols of suffering and patience.’ Such outlooks do not sit well with Salma and Soumya, who justify the institution of marriage as customary, necessary, and eternal. This polarity, in my opinion, later contributes to the plot as it translates to distrust and even borders on ageism and misogyny at times. That being the case, it cannot be overlooked that Aleena’s opinions on the role of women seem to be more informed from tweets and social media posts than from active readership and textual citations, as her opinions seem to be half-cooked and without substance.

One of the characters that stand out the most is the domestic help working at Vinay’s residence, Indhu. While the main 6 couples all seem to represent middle or upper-middle-class characters, Indhu and her husband represent the struggling lower class who, despite their best effort to stick to moral righteousness, are resolved to commit theft and lie about it in order to ensure their survival. Class hierarchies and their accompanying power structure is vividly presented in the film but in a more nuanced manner rather than being coded as black and white. This nuance comes in the form of the trust that Vinay and Divya share with Indhu and how despite their friends accusing Indhu of engaging in thievery, Vinay and Divya support her without a doubt.

Also, Read: 10 Great Malayalam Movies to Stream on Prime Video

The film remains engaging on its own with its screenplay, but what really stands out is the technical qualities, particularly the cinematography and color grading. Much of the scenes are shot in depth with the character backgrounds blurred and possessing a yellow tint which to some extent resonates with their upper-class ‘richness’. When shooting indoors, all scenes have filled compositions that emulate the material wealth that characterizes Vinay as a successful businessman in an exuberant capitalistic place like the UAE, which makes the class divide between him and Indhu all the more evident. The film, unfortunately, suffers from comparison with many films that follow a similar structure but more so from Jeethu Joseph’s recently released 12th Man (2022), which follows similar cracks in trust and friendships but presents higher stakes and therefore ends up being more gripping when it comes to plot development.

But despite this, Thamar presents an interesting slice-of-life story of how ideas of truth and lies are very subjective concepts that cannot be inherently labeled as good or bad while parallelly presenting a narrative on the intercultural experience of living in the Gulf where people from different parts of the globe coincide for sustaining a transnational existence beyond parochial boundaries of nationalism, religion, culture, and most importantly, language.

Editors note : This review was initially published during the film’s International Film Festival of Kerala premiere. One Thousand and One Lies is now streaming on SonyLIV .

1001 nunakal movie links – imdb one thousand and one lies (1001 nunakal) movie cast – remya suresh, vidhya vijaykumar, zhinz shan, trending right now.

10 Great Films That Helped Cinema Grow As An Art Form

Krishnanunni P is currently pursuing his Master's degree in Film and Literature from the University of York. He is an ardent fan of Football and Dance but also prefers to spend time immersed in Literature, Philosophy, and Cinema. He is on a personal pilgrimage to tell the artistic stories of Malayalam Cinema.

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Home » Movies » Aayirathonnu Nunakal Movie Review

Aayirathonnu Nunakal review: An intriguing movie made with a perfect blend of emotions and good writing

Thamar KV's directorial debut adopts a realistic approach to highlight the couple issues and the inner feelings of people.

Published:Aug 19, 2023

A poster of the film 'Aayirathonnu Nunakal'. (Supplied)

Well-written and executed.

Aayirathonnu Nunakal (Malayalam)

Cast: Vishnu Agasthya, Vidhya Vijayakumar, and Remya Suresh
Director: Thamar KV
Producer: Salim Ahammed
Music: Neha Nair, and Yakzan Gary Pereira
OTT platform: Sony Liv
Runtime: 1 hour 44 minutes
Cast: Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Emraan Hashmi, and Revathy
Director: Maneesh Sharma
Producer: Aditya Chopra
Music: Pritam Chakraborty
Runtime: 2 hours 35 minutes

Aayirathonnu Nunakal (1001 Lies) is the story of a group of friends in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia.

What makes this movie interesting is the realistic approach towards relationships, how couples hide some of the truths among the duo, and the repercussions they face after those truths are revealed.

The film was initially screened at the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) last year.

Directed by debutant Thamar KV, Aayirathonnu Nunakal is now streaming on Sony Liv.

It is similar to Mohanlal-Jeethu Joseph’s mystery film 12th Man (2022) where the couples are put in a spot to play the “Truth or Dare” game.

A picture from the location of ‘Aayirathonnu Nunakal’. (Supplied)

Aayirathonnu Nunakal starts with a residential building catching a fire.

Two couples — Rajesh (Sudeep Koshy), Soumya (Anusha Shyam), Salma (Shamla Hamza), and Mujeeb (Sajin Ali Pulakkal) — take a rescue at a mansion owned by their friend Vinay (Vishnu Agasthya) and his wife Divya (Ninin Kaassim).

The two families lose most of their belongings in the mishap and their distress is evident from their conversation.

Vinay and Divya ask the couples to extend their stay as they’re celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary the next day.

The plot gets interesting as more friends join the anniversary celebrations.

During the party, as a part of the “Truth or Dare” game, Vakeel (Sudheesh Scaria) asks every couple to reveal the lies that they have hidden from their partners.

The couples are initially reluctant to play the game, but Aleena (Vidhya Vijayakumar) and Joffy (Noufal Rahman) start the game by sharing some incidents. However, the couple takes the lies jovially.

But then, as the other couples start revealing theirs, the real trouble begins.

Also Read: ‘Prem Kumar’ is a hilarious tale of an unfortunate groom

A game of truth.

‘Aayirathonnu Nunakal’ has an interesting plot. (Supplied)

The incident narrated by Benzy (Rashmi K Nair) couldn’t have been accepted by any partner as she reveals something about her being childless. This really pains her husband Elvin (Sooraj K Nambiar).

The mood of the party gradually changes as more and more truths are revealed by everyone.

The revelation of Mujeeb that he had a lover turns out to be a real problem for him as his pregnant wife Salma couldn’t take it in the right manner.

When Rajesh, a jobless man, reveals an incident that he hid from his wife, it turns into an ego problem.

In a nutshell, the Truth or Dare game, which is meant to be played for fun, becomes an issue in itself.

Meanwhile, Anil (Shinz Khan), the husband of Bindu (Remya Suresh) who works as a maid Vinay-Divya’s house, faces some financial trouble in his office.

With a view to helping him, Bindu steals an expensive item from Vinay-Divya’s house. But will that help her solve Anil’s issue? It will be a major spoiler if revealed.

Well-written script

Vidya Vijayakumar as Aleena in ‘Aayirathonnu Nunakal’. (Supplied)

Aayirathonnu Nunakal has a well-written script by Thamar and Hashim Sulaiman.

The story deals with the inner feelings of a person living abroad. In an interview, the director stated that he attended such get-togethers in Abu Dhabi.

A jobless husband and the ego issues he has because of his working wife, the tale of a newly-married couple, the issues faced by a childless couple, trust issues that arouse after a partner reveals his lost love, and the tale of a successful couple are some of the takeaways of this movie.

The script is not too dramatic. The fights between couples seem realistic and all actors perform really well.

The movie serves as an eye-opener as it makes people think if it’s needed to reveal every minute detail of one’s life to one’s partner. The film warns that the truth may sometimes hamper one’s peace.

Performances

Aayirathonnu Nunakal has a host of newcomers who did a good job.

Vidhya Vijakumar as Aleena, a young woman who dares to stand for women, is impressive.

Sudheesh Scaria plays an important role as the vakeel/advocate and appears like a true professional.

Vishnu Agashtha gives his best in his role as Vinay.

Remya Suresh and Shinz Khan as the couple with financial problems are apt.

Shinz Khan makes a mark yet again after the web series Kerala Crime Files (2023).

Shamla Hamza shines among others.

Also Read: Dhyan Sreenivasan’s ‘Jailer’ works only in parts

Technical aspects.

On the technical front, Ashik S’s art direction elevates many scenes in Aayirathonnu Nunakal , since it is majorly set in a mansion.

Jithin Stansilaus’s cinematography gives a different hue to the film.

Editor Yusuf’s editing did justice to the movie which is of 1-hour-44-minute duration.

The background score by Neha Nair and Yakzan sets the right mood for the plot.

Aayirathonnu Nunakal is an overwhelming movie that dwells on the lives of married couples. It makes the audience think seriously about relationships.

(Views expressed here are personal.)

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‘Damaged’ Review: Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Cassel Headline a Slick but Tepid Serial Killer Thriller

Wobbly material lets down TV veteran Terry McDonough’s first theatrical feature, an Edinburgh-set mystery that delights in its gruesome crime scenes.

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At their least, the myriad serial-killer movies that followed in the imitative wake of “Se7en” three decades ago have gotten the grisly part down, but find compelling suspense, atmospherics and original narrative ideas harder to come by. Such is certainly the case with “ Damaged ,” which serves up a considerable number of victims’ severed limbs, yet is likely to leave scant impression — scarring or otherwise — on the viewer.

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Koji Steven Sakai, Capaldi and Paul Aniello’s script feels like an awkward compromise between competing visions, as well as somewhat inorganic multinational casting. While his performance is okay, frequently surrendering focus to better-known actors doesn’t lend Capaldi’s character enough heft or personality to center the film, as it seems meant to. Jackson is in enjoyably playful form at first, though later he’s saddled with more credulity-straining narrative baggage than he bothers to treat seriously. Cassel and particularly Dickie are underutilized, while the preliminary villains make a menacing impression the screenplay fails to flesh out much. (Even the story’s religious angles turn out to be a red herring.) Suspense is minimal in part because the murder victims are mostly only introduced to be offed — the film is less interested in their peril than lingering on the gory aftermaths.

McDonough has directed a lot of quality series installments on both sides of the Atlantic over the last quarter-century, including “Better Call Saul,” “Breaking Bad” and “The Street.” This belated first theatrical feature gets the benefit of his slick professionalism, as well as that of his overqualified actors. But they can only do so much with material that feels cursorily sewn together from elements of prior, better genre exercises, and which finally collapses into explication-heavy twistiness that leaves any remaining believability behind.

Nicely enough turned in all tech and design departments, “Damaged” is too efficiently handled to be dull, or even overtly bad — though viewers may find themselves rolling their eyes a bit after a while. But the overall lack of conviction reduces content that should be alarming and macabre to the status of an unmemorable time-killer.

Reviewed online, April 7, 2024. MPA Rating: R. Running time: 97 MIN.

Production: (U.K.-U.S.) A Liongate release of a Lionsgate, Grindstone Entertainment Group presentation, in association with Red Sea Media, Bondit Media Capital, Tartan Bridge Films of a High Five Films production. Producers: Paul Aniello, Gianni Capaldi, Roman Kopelevich. Executive producers: Barry Brooker, Stan Wertlieb, Roman Viaris, Greg Sinaiko, Luke Taylor, Matthew Helderman.
Crew: Director: Terry McDonough. Screenplay: Koji Steven Sakai, Gianni Capaldi, Paul Aniello; story: Paul Aniello. Camera: Matthias Poetsch. Editors: Luis de la Madrid, Sean Albertson, Kurt Nishimura. Music: Andrea Ridolfi.
With: Samuel L. Jackson, Vincent Cassel, Gianni Capaldi, Laura Haddock, John Hannah, Kate Dickie, Brian McCardie.

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‘Food, Inc. 2’ Review: A Second Course

Directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo, the sequel about food production in the U.S. is, in some ways, a more hopeful film.

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Two people are working in a field, walking down a dirt path. Red stakes rise from the ground in between leafy greens.

By Ben Kenigsberg

How many gory details about groceries can any moviegoer digest? The 2009 documentary “Food, Inc.” drew on the muckraking of Michael Pollan ( “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” ) and Eric Schlosser ( “Fast Food Nation” ) to reveal major problems with industrialized food production. The system, it argued, may keep supermarkets well-stocked, but most people have scant insight into how that food is made — and what it does to our health.

“Food, Inc. 2,” directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo, doesn’t merely regurgitate those ideas, although it begins by describing how the last few years have shown the risks of letting a small number of mega-suppliers dominate the market. The baby formula shortage ? Cramped meatpacking plants that became Covid-19 hot spots ? An industry less prone to gigantism might have avoided those horrors.

In some ways, the sequel is a more hopeful film. Pollan, who, along with Schlosser, is among the producers, notes the proliferation of farmers’ markets and grass-fed beef since the last movie’s release. (The credits list separate articles that the authors wrote in 2020 as inspiration.) “Food, Inc. 2” is also wonkier than the original: Its proposed solutions don’t simply boil down to finding better sources, but also enforcing antitrust policy, supporting fair-labor practices and finding new ways to return to time-tested farming methods .

Pollan visits sites where meat alternatives are manufactured and explains how those products present their own trade-offs. Elsewhere, experts testify to how foods can confuse our brains’ reward systems and how U.S. companies, faced with a food supply that provides more calories than anyone needs, have an incentive to make consumers eat more. You might devour less after watching “Food, Inc. 2,” and what you eat will probably be healthier.

Food, Inc. 2 Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms .

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Even before his new film “Civil War” was released, the writer-director Alex Garland faced controversy over his vision of a divided America with Texas and California as allies .

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‘Civil War’ beholds the rockets’ red glare but not real-world divisions

Alex garland’s lean, cruel film appeals to its broadest base by dodging specifics.

The jaw-clenching, bullet-clanging thriller “Civil War” opens with a blurry image of the president of the United States of America. As the president moves into view, we can see he’s played by Nick Offerman and can hear the speech he’s practicing, vague platitudes about vanquishing the insurgents of California and Texas. But even as POTUS’s face comes into focus, writer-director Alex Garland keeps him fuzzy. What are his politics? What could have possibly united blue California and red Texas against him? What year is it? I suspect Garland might answer that specifics are a distraction. No bloodbath is rational.

Early on in Garland’s fourth movie, a bomb explodes in New York. In the eerie silence, a hard-bitten war photographer named Lee (Kirsten Dunst) dispassionately snaps photos of the fresh corpses. Behind her, a greenhorn named Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) takes photos of Lee taking photos of the dead, and behind Jessie, of course, are Garland and his cinematographer Rob Hardy filming images of both women. There are three lens-lengths of distance between these horrors and us bystanders curious to see the collapse of the United States.

Everyone in that chain would claim they’re recording the brutality for our benefit. Lee admits she hoped ghastly images from her earlier career — a montage of executions from other wars in other countries that flips by in eerily stunning slow motion — would caution her own homeland to keep the peace. Clearly, that didn’t work. Maybe Garland naively hopes the same, which is why he’s avoided the real-world polarization behind this conflict so his gory warning will be watched by as many Americans as possible. Garland has stripped every background player of any demographic patterns of age, race, class, gender or beliefs. One fatal standoff is between two women of color who appear to be roughly the same age. There’s no telling which side would want your allegiance (and, honestly, neither deserves it). The only word we recognize, a reference to Lee’s landmark photographs of something called “the antifa massacre,” rushes past so fast that only later do we realize Garland didn’t give away whether the antifascists got slaughtered or did the slaughtering.

Garland doesn’t investigate how this war started, or how long it’s been going on, or whether it’s worth fighting. The film is, like Dunst’s Lee and her longtime colleagues Joel (Wagner Moura) and Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), coldly, deliberately incurious about the combatants and the victims. As Lee says, any moral questions about them should be asked by whoever is looking at her photos, but those theoretical observers don’t factor into the film, either. (By contrast, this year’s Oscar documentary winner “20 Days in Mariupol,” also about photographers in a war zone, threw its narrative weight behind the desperation to get its powerful images out .) When we take in Dunst’s weary gaze and welded-on grimace with the same dispassion Lee gives to her own subjects, we can’t imagine the last time she let herself feel anything at all.

Yet the blinders Garland welds onto the story make it charge forward with gusto. This is a lean, cruel film about the ethics of photographing violence, a predicament any one of us could be in if we have a smartphone in our hand during a crisis. That’s also a predicament that Garland and other big-idea, big-scare directors find themselves in when they want to tell a shocker about very bad things without overly enjoying their sadistic thrills. Garland’s first three movies — “Ex Machina,” “Annihilation” and “Men” — dug into artificial intelligence, environmental collapse and sexual aggression, some more compellingly than others. In “Civil War,” any patriotic ideals about what this country once stood for never come up. The closest anyone comes to invoking democracy is a funny gag when a hotel concierge tells Lee that, given the sporadic blackouts, she has the freedom of choice between risking the elevator or climbing 10 flights of stairs.

Most of the movie is spent embedded with Lee, Jessie, Joel and Sammy as their battered white van takes a circuitous route from Manhattan to Washington. The gang races their competitors for footage of the president. Over a soundtrack of anxious punk rock, we see the cost of nabbing the money shot: the bottles of vodka, the filthy clothes worn for days on end, the growing doubts that their press badges still offer protection. Garland has an obvious arc in mind: Jessie the rookie must shed her vulnerability (which Spaeny does, masterfully), while Lee the veteran must regain hers. But it’s hard to buy Dunst’s unflappable pro needing to be dragged around by the scruff of her bulletproof vest like a mewling kitten.

Occasionally, the film plays us for a fool. The trailers have made a fuss over a line where a rifle-wielding soldier (Jesse Plemons) asks the journalists, “What kind of Americans are you?” But in context, it turns out that the brute is asking Moura’s Joel if he might be Central or South American. (“Florida,” Joel replies.) The bully is actually “just” xenophobic — a fake-out that feels like Garland is nervously changing the subject. Yet, more often, the film feels poetically, deeply true, even when it’s suggesting that humans are more apt to tear one another apart for petty grievances than over a sincere defense of some kind of principles. In one dreamlike scene, the team is attacked by sniper fire at an abandoned winter carnival. No one knows who’s shooting, a stranger in fatigues shrugs, as they duck behind plastic penguins and plaster Santa Clauses. We never will.

R. At area theaters. Contains strong violent content, bloody/disturbing images and language throughout. 109 minutes.

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A Thousand and One movie review (2023)
A.V. Rockwell's "A Thousand and One" was the somewhat surprising winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance a couple of months ago, a trophy taken home by major movies like "CODA" and "Whiplash" in past years. While other films were considered frontrunners, it feels like Rockwell's heartfelt drama took the prize largely because of the sheer force of its central performance, a ...
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A Thousand and One begins in 1994, shortly before a 22-year-old woman named Inez is released from Rikers Island. We don't know much about her, but Teyana Taylor, the electrifying actor who plays ...
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Review: 'A Thousand and One' offers a gritty New York story of survival. Teyana Taylor in the movie "A Thousand and One.". Mothers are often the keepers of secrets, borne from a primal ...
A Thousand and One (2023)
A Thousand and One: Directed by A.V. Rockwell. With Teyana Taylor, Aaron Kingsley Adetola, Aven Courtney, Josiah Cross. After unapologetic and fiercely loyal Inez kidnaps her son Terry from the foster care system, mother and son set out to reclaim their sense of home, identity, and stability, in a rapidly changing New York City.
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March 29, 2023 at 9:39 a.m. EDT. Teyana Taylor in "A Thousand and One." (Aaron Ricketts/Focus Features) ( 4 stars) Writer-director A.V. Rockwell makes a triumphant debut with "A Thousand and ...
'A Thousand and One' Review: Teyana Taylor Shines in Stirring Drama
By David Rooney. January 22, 2023 6:30pm. Teyana Taylor and Aaron Kingsley Adetola in 'A Thousand and One' Focus Features/Courtesy of Sundance Institute. The struggles of a young woman of color to ...
A Thousand and One
A Thousand and One is a 2023 American drama film written and directed by A. V. Rockwell in her feature directorial debut. The film stars Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, and Aaron Kingsley Adetola.Set between the 1990s and 2000s, it focuses on a single mother who decides to kidnap her son out of the foster care system to raise him herself, as the two struggle with life ...
Teyana Taylor Is So Good in 'A Thousand and One'
In director A.V. Rockwell's new drama from Focus Features, 'A Thousand and One,' Teyana Taylor turns in a lead performance as Inez that is tenacious, contradictory, adaptable, and raw.
Movie Review: 'A Thousand and One' the year's first great film
Run Time: 1 hour 57 minutes. Rated R.S. tarring: Teyana Taylor, Terri Abney, Delissa Reynolds, William Catlett, Amelia Workman, Aven Courtney, Josiah Cross, Aaron Kingsley Adetola. Written and ...
A THOUSAND AND ONE
"A love letter to mothers, sons, and hustlers of NYC." A.V. Rockwell's A THOUSAND AND ONE is only in theaters March 31, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the...
1001 Nunakal (2022)
1001 Nunakal: Directed by Thamar K.V.. With Remya Suresh, Zhinz Shan, Vidhya Vijaykumar, Vishnu Agasthya. Close friends get together and have some good time over food and talks until one of them proposes a game: each of them has to reveal a lie that they have hidden from their partners.
1001 Nunakal movie review: A slow burner that underlines it's all fun
1001 Nunakal movie review: A slow burner that underlines it's all fun and games until truths begin to pour out Thamar KV's Aayirathonnu Nunakal (1001 Lies) explores the complexities of both lies and absolute candour, while refraining from definitively advocating for one over the other, allowing viewers to form their own opinions.
'1001 Nunakal' film review: Stimulating, ingeniously constructed family
It has as much -- or almost the same -- depth as the intense family dramas of Asghar Farhadi or, to take the example of a Malayalam cinema veteran, KG George, keeping in mind how the characters in ...
1001 Nunakal Movie Review: A gripping drama on marriage & friendships
1001 Nunakal Movie Review: Critics Rating: 3.5 stars, click to give your rating/review,The smartest thing about the script is despite the game of telling secrets being unpleasant for each.
1001 Nunakal Movie Review: A gripping drama on marriage & friendships
Anna Mathews, Aug 18, 2023, 08.22 PM IST Critic's Rating: 3.5/5. Story: The relationships among a few couple and friends are tested when come together for a wedding anniversary party and swap secrets. Review: 1001 Nunakal has one of those 'been there done that' feels, with the story device being of people coming together and swapping ...
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Jason Dietz. Before French-Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve earned the attention of sci-fi fans with excellent Dune and Blade Runner films, he made a name for himself with crime thrillers and indie dramas. Here, we rank every one of his films to date from worst to best by Metascore.
Subtle politics of unravelling secrets: Watching '1001 Nunakal'
Directed by Thamar K.V. and backed by the award-winning producer Salim Ahamed, the movie holds slight resemblances to the format of the 2019 movie 'Theerppu' and the Mohanlal starrer '12th Man'. Although the similarities end there, '1001 Nunakal' stands out, thanks to the strong characterisation.
1001 Nunakal
1001 Nunakal (transl. Thousand and One Lies), also known as Aayirathonnu Nunakal, is a 2022 Indian Malayalam-language drama film directed by Thamar K. V. in his directorial debut and produced by Salim Ahamed. The film premiered in the Malayalam Cinema Today category at the 27th International Film Festival of Kerala in December 2022. The plot revolves around a group of friends who decide to ...
Thousand and One Lies (1001 Nunakal, 2023) Movie Review
The film follows the revealing of the many secrets shared amongst the couples and the personal revelations this results in as they reinvent themselves in the eyes of each other. It becomes a cathartic release of pent-up emotions and frustrations to some extent that is distasteful at times but eventually becomes healing and introspective. 1001 ...
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Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die at Amazon.com. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. ... 5.0 out of 5 stars Great listing and explanation of movie reviews. Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2020. Verified Purchase. Ease of use. One person found this ...
'Aayirathonnu Nunakal' Malayalam movie review
Aayirathonnu Nunakal review: An intriguing movie made with a perfect blend of emotions and good writing ... Aayirathonnu Nunakal (1001 Lies) is the story of a group of friends in Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. What makes this movie interesting is the realistic approach towards relationships, how couples hide some of the truths among the duo, and the ...
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Set in Pakistan, the story of a young woman and her family, hemmed in by men, shifts from realism to genre, with heart-pumping consequences. By Alissa Wilkinson When you purchase a ticket for an ...
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Little by little, personalities seep out. The alpha male (Nathan Zellner, who co-directed with his brother, David Zellner) is grumpy, aggressive and disruptively randy, courting furious rejection ...
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Wobbly material lets down Terry McDonough's theatrical debut, 'Damaged,' a gory Edinburgh-set mystery starring Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Cassel.
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"Food, Inc. 2," directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo, begins by describing how the last few years have shown the risks of letting a handful of mega-suppliers dominate the market.
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Review
Early on in Garland's fourth movie, a bomb explodes in New York. In the eerie silence, a hard-bitten war photographer named Lee (Kirsten Dunst) dispassionately snaps photos of the fresh corpses.
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