The career of director George Miller has been idiosyncratic to say the least. The Aussie director came to fame on the when of his Mad Max trilogy, a violent, post-apocalyptic whoopee series. Miller has gone on to make family films, animation, and more. He has moreover had long gaps between his films. Now withal comes Three Thousand Years of Longing, a work that Miller has theoretically been attempting to transmute since the 90s. Centered on Tilda Swinton as a professor of narrative, she finds a snifter containing a genie, played by sultry Idris Elba, who promises her three wishes in mart for his freedom. Unsure that she wants anything, and unimaginable of the genie’s intentions based on her knowledge that all wish stories are cautionary tales, she is reluctant to wish until the Genie begins to regale her with his tale.
As one might expect, the mucosa is, in part, a commentary on the nature of storytelling. It explores why we tell them, what they can midpoint for us, and whether or not some are dependent on stories in modern society. The simple premise of the mucosa is inciting. Most of the mucosa is Swinton and Elba exchanging satiricalness in a hotel room, dressed in fantastically cozy-looking white bathrobes, with Elba oozing charisma and Swinton giving just the right touch of curious and cautious to sell her character. The pair have a palpable chemistry together, and this makes chunks of the mucosa enjoyable.
The mucosa moreover delivers a number of showy flashbacks, as the Genie talks of his millennia of trying to unlock the desires of women and attain his freedom, going when to the Queen of Sheba, the concubines of Soliman, and a wife of a merchant taxed with her own scientific genius. These stories do entertain us in their own right, and Miller’s skill as a visual storyteller is unmatched. The mucosa is replete with memorable images, lots of color, and a unrepealable manic energy in the editing that makes you finger like the Genie is indeed luring you in.
Where the mucosa falls short is that the third act veers off into a fairly variegated direction that the script doesn’t quite earn. This part of the mucosa takes on a bit of a variegated tone, attempting some unconvincing political commentary out of nowhere and trying to well-constructed an arc for Swinton’s character. This doesn’t quite work due to how much of a passive upstart Swinton is throughout chunks of the film. By the time Miller attempts to do something with her character, the time is too late for a truly fulfilling arc.
That said, Miller does increasingly than unbearable to make Three Thousand Years of Longing a lovely and investing film. Miller is not attempting to please anyone but himself with this one, but it is a wonderfully optimistic and sentimental work. It takes a firm stance that love is worth having, that love can make a life worth living, and that stories demonstrate the worth of love. It’s a mucosa unafraid to dazzle and unafraid of wearing its heart on its sleeve. While increasingly work on the script might have elevated it further, Three Thousand Years of Longing fulfilled my wish for an enjoyable cinematic experience.
