Synopsis
A solitary scholar discovers an ancient bottle while on a trip to Istanbul and unleashes a djinn who offers her three wishes. Filled with reluctance, she is unable to come up with one, so the djinn tries to inspire her with his stories.
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Cast
- Tilda SwintonAlithea
- Idris ElbaThe Djinn
- Erdil YaşaroğluProfessor Günhan
- Sabrina ElbaBritish Council Lady / The Watcher
- Sarah HouboltAirport Djinn
- Seyithan ÖzdemirPale Djinn
- Aamito LagumThe Queen of Sheba
- Nicolas MouawadKing Solomon
- Ece YükselGulten
- Matteo BocelliPrince Mustafa
Recommendations
- 83
IndieWire
In fact, the two stars are so sweet and searching together — their characters’ respective power and mutual solitude pulling them together with practical magic — that some of the film’s more spectacular detours seem flimsy by contrast. - 75
The Playlist
The cumulative merits on display in Miller’s museum of amazement, from the whiz-bang recreations of freakified old-world grandeur to the humbler miracles shared between two wayward souls, we hang on every word of the narration — as sure a sign of a well-spun yarn as any. - 70
Vanity Fair
It’s a curious film, messy in all its ambition but consistently transfixing, an earnest labor of love—and one about love. - 60
Total Film
George Miller combines myth, magic, and romance to mixed effect in a visually dazzling adult fairytale starring a committed Swinton and Elba. - 60
Screen Daily
Hardly lacking ambition or verve, this amped-up fairy tale comes complete with social commentary and a grownup examination of the consequences of seeking connection, but the episodic, intermittently engaging saga frustrates more than it enchants. - 60
Variety
These days, audiences are so savvy about the tricks at a filmmaker’s disposal that the movie’s greatest achievement is that it seizes our imagination (or perhaps that’s our attention deficit disorder being so brusquely manhandled) and holds it for the better part of two hours, defying us to anticipate what comes next. - 60
The Guardian
Three Thousand Years of Longing is guileless, open-hearted, like an antiquarian bookseller’s dream of The Thief of Baghdad. It’s so defiantly out of step with fashion that there’s finally something faintly glorious about it. - 60
BBC
If a screenplay is going to be fixated on the history and purpose of storytelling, the stories within it have to be better.
