TMS Movie Review: 3,000 Years of Longing
(Elise Lockwood / MGM Studios)
In true George Miller fashion, the Aussie filmmaking legend’s latest release, Three Thousand Years of Longing, is epic, colorful, fantastical, wild and—an expected flop at the box-office. While Miller has gained a legacy for his Mad Max franchise (1979-2015), producing Chris Noonan’s Babe (1995) and directing the sequel, Pig in the City (1998), himself; I wasn’t surprised 3,000 Years of Longing seemed to get hardly any promo and was just casually placed at the end of the summer film schedule. If the Oscar friendly Mad Max reboot Fury Road (2015) couldn’t even succeed with audiences, a plotless, wonderous genie themed fantasy-drama isn’t going to either.
In present day, Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is a single, childless literary scholar who is out of town for a conference in Istanbul, Turkey. Alithea’s specialty is storytelling, specifically the narration of how stories are told. While ordering room service in her hotel room, the older woman starts washing an old antique she bought in the city—which turns out to be a bottle filled with a magical genie she unintentionally releases. The supernatural being, known as a Djin (Idris Elba), then gets into his life story for Alithea while convincing her to free him of his imprisonment with three wishes.
(Elise Lockwood / MGM Studios)
Three Thousand Years of Longing is loosely based on a 1994 novella called The Djin in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt. Fortunately, Miller and script partner Augusta Gore choose to not overstay their welcome and keep their screen adaptation at only 100 minutes, rather than expand more inspiration from the source. For the audience’s sake, it’s good 3,000 Years is under two hours, because it is very dialogue heavy on the ethos and purpose of wishes existing; while the actual magical elements are fleeting, yet always present because our male lead is a genie. A good 20-25% of the film takes place in that small hotel room rather than in a fairytale setting. Although, I will say it was interesting to see an old fashioned genie portrayed enjoying things regular humans do [such as eating food and having sex]. Elba and Swinton are fine as the leads, though Swinton’s intense Irish brogue for Alithea got a bit tiring after a while.
I feel a little out of my element commenting on an old white guy making a movie heavily focused on eastern cultures and myths, so I’ll leave that conversation for those familiar with these aspects. I don’t mind theories and philosophical discussions on the ethics of superpowers, but most of the time epic-in-scope pictures like 3,000 Years—especially with so much backstory and subplot—generally aren’t my thing. While critics and MGM/United Artists are selling 3,000 Years of Longing as ‘Aladdin for adults,’ I think I might just stick with Aladdin.