The trailer for this movie looked intriguing, the title confusing (it’s the address of an apartment), and the movie poster was wonderful, reminding me of an Ernie Barnes style painting (side note: some filmmaker should make a movie on Barnes, who had an incredible story).
This story involves a woman (Teyana Taylor) who gets out after a stint in Rikers Island. She’s looking for a place to live, and some jobs doing hair. She sees some kids playing, and notices her son (Aaron Kingsley Adetola), who is now in the foster care system. He doesn’t seem so eager to see her, even though she’s hooking the kids up with money for popsicles.
After the boy shows up with a suspicious bruise, she decides to kidnap him and get out of Dodge.
First time writer/director A.V. Rockwell won the top prize at Sundance for this film, and Focus Features smartly snapped it up. It feels a bit like a Spike Lee film, or Moonlight (since we watch a shy boy in various stages of his life, who has a loving father figure that isn’t always the perfect person).
It takes place in the early ‘90s in New York City,
It’s enjoyable to watch the mother and son, because the kid is so adorable. And it’s smart that Rockwell didn’t go down the paths you might expect. For example, when this 6-year-old is left home alone, the place doesn’t burn down or anything crazy like that. He just gets bored, watches TV, and spills cereal on the floor. She still curses up a storm and isn’t the best mom, but we know her heart is in the right place, and we feel bad about her struggles.
The story jumps to the early 2000s (we’ll eventually follow the story until the boy is 18).
Josiah Cross plays Terry in the later teen years, and his facial expressions are perfect. I felt they made him a bit too shy, though. That worked for him as a young boy who is thrown into different living situations all the time (and you’ll just adore his reluctance around the new man that moves in with them). Yet, since he’s excelling in school and has friends, the shy bit doesn’t quite work for me. The middle parts also get a bit slow and the writing is uneven at times. The script is also underwritten. An example of that would be the father figure, Lucky (Will Catlett). His early scenes with Terry are great, and his fights with Inez are well done; but there’s a scene with the two guys shooting hoops, and I felt the dialogue needed to be a bit better.
It was refreshing that, unlike Spike Lee, Rockwell is able to show us how the city is changing, and how cops are treating Terry (stop and frisk), but it’s not beating us over the head with it. Even a scene with a white landlord. My wife felt he was a slum lord. I didn’t think he was. I just felt he was a bit of a jerk in the way he treated Inez (and again, the look on Cross’ face when he realizes they might lose their apartment, is just perfect).
It was also refreshing that Rockwell doesn’t try to elicit our sympathy in ways other filmmakers might, and it’s nicely understated. Even with the R&B-instrumental score (complete with the popping sounds you hear on an album) by Gary Gunn, which isn’t some melodramatic music we’d get in a film dealing with such a tough odyssey as these characters are facing.
One other note regarding the music – it’s the best use of the Delfonics in a film since Jackie Brown.
It’s also a nice touch how we subtly see changes in the city and changes in Inez. She softens a bit later in the movie, but hasn’t completely changed into this incredible woman that’s providing a great home for her son. She’ll still curse all the time and make a few bad decisions. It felt more realistic the way it was done here (and the ending will break your heart into a thousand and one pieces).
3 ½ stars out of 5.