Idris Elba stars as The Djinn in director George Miller’s film Three Thousand Years of Longing

Three Thousand Years of Longing (15A) stars Tilda Swinton as Alithea, a literary scholar – a narratologist, no less – who is attending a conference in Istanbul when she picks up an unusual oil lamp in the bazaar. Having released a Djinn (Idris Elba) from the lamp, Alithea – a pragmatic, logical woman – refuses to play along with granting of three wishes, this because every story about a genie and a lamp always backfires on the human who makes ill-considered wishes. 

Desperate to persuade her of his genuine intent, the Djinn begins telling Alithea his life’s story, and how he has been constantly thwarted by human inconstancy… 

Adapted by Augusta Gore and George Miller from an A.S. Byatt short story, with Miller directing, Three Thousand Years of Longing runs ‘contrary to reason’, as Alithea says, as it effectively evokes the world of the Arabian Nights, with the Djinn playing the part of the story-weaving Scheherazade, his interlinked tales taking us back to the Persian Empire and then forward again through the Ottoman era to modern times. 

It’s a yarn that’s even more wildly improbable than Blackbird, woven from magic spells, court intrigue and epic romance, but George Miller has crafted a sumptuous fantasy that is visually and narratively imaginative. Tilda Swinton is terrific as the hardboiled Northern English scholar who refuses to believe in the Djinn’s supernatural powers – Alithea, after all, has made a career from debunking myth and legend – but even she is outshone by Idris Elba, who is mesmerising as the gravel-toned, hulking but emotionally vulnerable genie. (cinema release)

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