An English lecturer, Alithea (Tilda Swinton), accidentally acquires a djinn (Idris Elba) during her trip to Turkey. The Djinn offers her three wishes, but Alithea, being an expert on stories and fairy tales, already knows to be careful what you wish for. She spends the rest of the movie teasing out the Djinn's life story to figure out if she can trust him with her wishes.
Thus goes the unlikely set up of an offbeat romance movie that doesn't ever feel like one. Three Thousand Years of Longing uses Alithea and the Djinn's conversation as a framing device to hear a half dozen different stories, in the style of 1001 Arabian Nights. Each are vibrant and strikingly imaginative, showing us wizards and monsters, sultans and palaces and harems. And as soon as these flights of fantasy are over, we return to Alithea and the Djinn making stilted small talk in a Turkish hotel room.
The movie's biggest weakness is the lack of obvious chemistry between Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. It comes as a surprise when Alithea states she has fallen in love with the Djinn over a single conversation. We are told how this could come about; Alithea is a both a bit of an odd-duck loner, and also someone who is enamoured with the art of story telling, but even with that insight their relationship doesn't feel at all natural. On top of that is the fact that the Djinn is utterly beholden to Alithea, so there is a slightly obscured power dynamic between an English white woman and her black slave. Once you look beyond the fantastical nature of the situation, it seems exploitative.
To its credit, the story eventually attempts to address this in its third act, but it is not sufficient to make the relationship ever feel natural or heart warming, despite it being the movie's clear intent. It doesn't help that the third act itself feels a little out of place. Most of the movie takes place in this one location - the hotel room - until it suddenly doesn't, taking us to a house in London, leaving us for the next half hour wondering where this whole story is going, and not in a positive sense.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is worth watching for its visual artistry and intrigue, especially if you have a fondness for Fairy Tales. For movie that is all about story telling however, Three Thousand years stumbles in telling its own satisfying tale.
Film ``What She is Doing is Correct, but it is Annoying.``
An English lecturer, Alithea (Tilda Swinton), accidentally acquires a djinn (Idris Elba) during her trip to Turkey. The Djinn offers her three wishes, but Alithea, being an expert on stories and fairy tales, already knows to be careful what you wish for. She spends the rest of the movie teasing out the Djinn's life story to figure out if she can trust him with her wishes.
Thus goes the unlikely set up of an offbeat romance movie that doesn't ever feel like one. Three Thousand Years of Longing uses Alithea and the Djinn's conversation as a framing device to hear a half dozen different stories, in the style of 1001 Arabian Nights. Each are vibrant and strikingly imaginative, showing us wizards and monsters, sultans and palaces and harems. And as soon as these flights of fantasy are over, we return to Alithea and the Djinn making stilted small talk in a Turkish hotel room.
The movie's biggest weakness is the lack of obvious chemistry between Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. It comes as a surprise when Alithea states she has fallen in love with the Djinn over a single conversation. We are told how this could come about; Alithea is a both a bit of an odd-duck loner, and also someone who is enamoured with the art of story telling, but even with that insight their relationship doesn't feel at all natural. On top of that is the fact that the Djinn is utterly beholden to Alithea, so there is a slightly obscured power dynamic between an English white woman and her black slave. Once you look beyond the fantastical nature of the situation, it seems exploitative.
To its credit, the story eventually attempts to address this in its third act, but it is not sufficient to make the relationship ever feel natural or heart warming, despite it being the movie's clear intent. It doesn't help that the third act itself feels a little out of place. Most of the movie takes place in this one location - the hotel room - until it suddenly doesn't, taking us to a house in London, leaving us for the next half hour wondering where this whole story is going, and not in a positive sense.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is worth watching for its visual artistry and intrigue, especially if you have a fondness for Fairy Tales. For movie that is all about story telling however, Three Thousand years stumbles in telling its own satisfying tale.