Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

• Year: 2022
• Released: 26 Aug 2022
• Country: Australia, United States
• Adwords: N/A
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9198364/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_thousand_years_of_longing
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/three-thousand-years-of-longing
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
• Runtime: 108 min
• Writer: George Miller, Augusta Gore, A.S. Byatt
• Director: George Miller
• Cast: Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba, Pia Thunderbolt
• Keywords: genie, djinn, lonely woman, istanbul, turkey, erase,

	6.9/10
	60/100
	71% – Critics
	73% – Audience

Three Thousand Years of Longing Storyline

Dr Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is an academic – content with life and a creature of reason. While in Istanbul attending a conference, she happens to encounter a Djinn (Idris Elba) who offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom. This presents two problems. First, she doubts that he is real and second, because she is a scholar of story and mythology, she knows all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong. The Djinn pleads his case by telling her fantastical stories of his past. Eventually she is beguiled and makes a wish that surprises them both.

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Three Thousand Years of Longing Movie Reviews

Not the movie the trailer would lead you to believe it is

Tilda Swinton is an academic who studies stories. She lives a fairly isolated existence … by choice … valuing her independence over close relationships. While at a conference in Istanbul, she buys a glass bottle as a souvenir and when she accidentally opens it in her hotel room, djinn Idris Elba emerges. Naturally, he tells her she has three wishes, but as she’s an expert on stories, she’s wary since all the stories she knows about wishing are cautionary tales. Since he needs her to make wishes to be free, Elba tells her stories about his past to explain how he ended up in the bottle and to build trust.

The advertising for this film is deceptive. The trailer and this poster try to convince you that you’re getting some kind of magical George Miller action extravaganza along the lines of Mad max meets “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. This is nothing like that film. It’s a pretty stately paced film that mostly involves Swinton and Elba talking in a hotel room, with Elba’s stories providing the magnificent visuals. But even these stories are pretty deliberately paced. It’s a film about ideas, not action.

I really liked the ideas. It’s about the role of stories in life and also about love and companionship. It’s also about the idea of wishing for things and what we ultimately have the right to demand from other people. The pace lagged occasionally for me, but I’m very forgiving of a film this packed with ideas and ultimately so intriguingly open ended.

Not Quite What I Wished For.

If you, like I was, are expecting a fast-paced, light-spirited, fun romp of visual extravaganza and witty dialogue along the journey that is Three Thousand Years of Longing … you WILL be disappointed. Now, that is not meant to dissuade you from watching or enjoying it. On the contrary. It is simply meant to temper your expectations.

There is certainly much beauty in many of this film’s scenes; from curious beauty in the mundane, to fabulous beauty in the fantastical. (There is also a musical scene that will spirit you away to decadent places). Sadly however, for some unknown reason, this film chooses to stay more in the realm of the mundane than the wondrous. The wasted shame in this is almost palpable.

The film also feels somewhat choppy or disconnected at times. This is especially true quite early, when it begins to touch upon and wander into the mythical almost immediately, but with no real explanation as to why or how those particular scenes tie in with the rest of the film.

Lastly, and most grievously, while all the right words existed for this story to be told … it seemed to lack a bit of passion or fervor from the storytellers.

All this is NOT to imply that Three Thousand Years of Longing is without its merits.

For one, Swinton and Elba together (although IMO neither delivering their best performances), is still a treat. They are beautiful separately, and together, they are art. Neither however, could elevate the tone of the film because, intentionally or not, the MAIN TONE of several parts of the film, is more cacophony than cadence. It is, my friends, far darker and sadder in parts, than what may be expected.

Think of it as a bedtime story for adults where the story is entertaining enough, and the pictures are beautiful, but the Happily Ever After may be a tad bittersweet and hard to swallow.

Could be much more, but fell in love with its own premise

It’s a good movie, that should have been excellent but ended up just “good”. It’s visually magnificent, it has very good acting and it’s basic idea is original and even poignant but. There are a few very big buts in stopping it from reaching the potential heights it should’ve reached.

It’s getting lost in its own meandering tale, though we’ve all figured out the point it wanted to make long before it spells it out on the screen. It want’s too much to demonstrate it’s about storytelling so all the stories we see on screen are so heavily narrated that many of their charming characters end up as puppets with only glimpse of the character they should have, preventing us from really caring for them or in other words leaving us uninvolved with big chunks of the story. The combination of a long meandering plot line that keeps the audience uninvolved is an obstacle almost no movie can survive.

If I did enjoy it it’s mainly because of the leading couple – Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton – no they’re not giving a gut wrenching performance – they’re simply very very professional keeping the convoluted plotline from losing us altogether anchoring the viewers to the story without turning it into a soap opera, and it could very easily turn into one so I’m definitely grateful for that professionalism. I simply can’t help wondering what could have happened had it fulfilled the potential it most certainly has.