Three Thousand Years of Longing

AroView: Based on the short story “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” by A.S. Byatt, this fairytale for grown-ups from director George Miller holds something special for fans of storytelling and philosophy.

Idris Elba plays the mythological Djinn who is finally released from his bottle to grant Tilda Swinton’s ‘narratologist’ three wishes – the trouble is she’s perfectly contented and wants for nothing. The delightful performances are matched by a lucid, witty script and some to-die-for production design and visual fx.

“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.” ~Charles Bramesco, The Playlist