Three Thousand Years of Longing

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Three Thousand Years of Longing
File:Three Thousand Years of Longing.jpeg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by George Miller
Produced by <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Screenplay by <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • George Miller
  • Augusta Gore[1]
Based on "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye"
by A. S. Byatt
Starring <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Music by Tom Holkenborg
Cinematography John Seale
Edited by Margaret Sixel
Production
company
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Distributed by <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Release dates
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  • May 20, 2022 (2022-05-20) (Cannes)
  • August 26, 2022 (2022-08-26) (United States)
  • September 1, 2022 (2022-09-01) (Australia)
Running time
 108 minutes[2]
Country <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • United States
  • Australia
Language English
Budget $60 million[3][4]
Box office $14.3 million[5][6]

Three Thousand Years of Longing is a 2022 fantasy romantic drama film directed by George Miller and starring Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Miller wrote the screenplay with Augusta Gore, adapting the 1994 short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye" by A. S. Byatt. Elba stars as a djinn who is freed by a professor (Swinton) and recounts his life to her. The film is dedicated to Miller's mother Angela, as well as Rena Mitchell, relative of producer Doug Mitchell.

It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2022, was released in cinemas in the United States on August 26, 2022 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (via United Artists Releasing), and was released in Australia on September 1, 2022, by Roadshow Entertainment. It received generally positive reviews, but was a box-office bomb.

Plot

Alithea Binnie is a lonely British scholar who occasionally suffers from bizarre hallucinations of demonic beings. During a trip to Istanbul, Alithea purchases an antique bottle, and accidentally unleashes a Djinn that was trapped within it. The Djinn offers to grant Alithea three wishes, so long as each one is truly her heart’s desire, but Alithea argues that wishing is a mistake, accusing the Djinn of being a trickster. In response to her accusation, the Djinn proceeds to tell her three tales of his past and how he ended up trapped in the bottle.

The Djinn tells the story of the Queen of Sheba, his cousin and lover, being wooed by King Solomon, who imprisons the Djinn in a bottle to keep Sheba for himself. The Djinn's second story centers on Gülten, a young concubine in the palace of Suleiman the Magnificent. After finding the Djinn's bottle, Gülten wishes for Suleiman's son, Mustafa, to fall in love with her and subsequently wishes to bear his child. However, Mustafa is murdered by his paranoid father, causing Gülten to leave behind the Djinn's hidden bottle and flee. Despite the Djinn’s attempts to pursue and save her, the pregnant Gülten is also killed on Suleiman’s orders before she can make her final wish.

The Djinn wanders the palace for over 100 years, invisible and intangible due to the concealment of the bottle. Meanwhile, the bottle is almost found by young princes Murad IV and Ibrahim, but they are unable to successfully uncover the bottle. Years later, Murad IV goes into war, where he becomes a vicious and ruthless ruler, later dying from alcoholism. Ibrahim develops a fetish for voluptuous concubines and becomes the new sultan. His favourite among them, Sugar Lump, accidentally retrieves the bottle, whereupon the Djinn appears to her and desperately begs her to make a wish. Sugar Lump, scared and confused, wishes for the Djinn to return to his bottle and for the bottle to be cast into the sea.

In the Djinn's final story, he tells of Zefir, the young wife of a Turkish merchant, who is gifted the bottle after it is recovered in the mid-19th Century. Zefir wishes first for knowledge, which the Djinn grants in the form of literature, and later to perceive the world as djinns do. Despite the Djinn's growing affection for Zefir and the fact she is now pregnant with his child, she grows increasingly crowded by his presence and her newfound knowledge. The Djinn offers to reside in his bottle whenever she wishes, but as he begins his return to the bottle, Zefir wishes to forget she ever met the Djinn, leaving him imprisoned and unknown once again. The Djinn's final story moves Alithea to the point where she wishes for Djinn and herself to fall in love, resulting in them having sex.

Afterwards, the Djinn and Alithea travel back to London together. One day, Alithea discovers that the Djinn is gradually becoming weaker due to the effects that the city's cell tower and satellite transmissions have when interacting with his supernatural physiology. She uses her second wish to get the severely ill Djinn to speak again, apologizes for using her wish to deny them the chance to fall in love naturally, and uses her third and final wish to set the Djinn free, so he is able to return to "The Realm of Djinn."

Though expecting never to see him again, the now-healthy Djinn visits Alithea three years later and periodically returns throughout her lifetime.

Cast

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130px
The film stars Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton.

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Production

File:George Miller (35706244922).jpg
Director, co-writer and co-producer George Miller

It was announced in October 2018 that George Miller had set his next directorial effort, described as "epic in scope" and expected to begin filming in 2019.[7] Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton were announced as cast members the same month.[8] The film is based on A. S. Byatt's short story "The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye."[9]

In a July 2019 interview, Miller said that pre-production would begin in late 2019, and that filming would begin on March 2, 2020 between Australia, Turkey and the United Kingdom.[10][11][12] Filming was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic[13] and began in November 2020 in Australia.[14]

Release

In May 2020, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (via United Artists Releasing) acquired the film's North American distribution rights, with Metropolitan Filmexport and Sunac Culture handling distribution in France and China respectively.[15][16] Roadshow Entertainment handled the Australian distribution,[17] while Entertainment Film Distributors handled distribution in the United Kingdom.[18]

The film premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 2022, where it received a six-minute standing ovation.[16][19] An activist protesting sexual violence perpetrated by Russian soldiers in Ukraine appeared at the premiere and stripped nude while screaming before being removed by Cannes security.[20] The film's first trailer was also released that day.[21]

The film's scheduled August 31 release was moved up to August 26.[22] It was released in Australia on September 1.

Reception

Box office

As of September 20, 2022, Three Thousand Years of Longing has grossed $8.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $6.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $14.3 million.[6]

In the United States and Canada, it was released alongside The Invitation and Breaking.[4] It made $1.4 million on its first day[23] and went on to debut with $2.9 million from 2,436 theaters on its opening weekend.[24] Variety called it "a terrible result for a movie that's playing in thousands of theaters across the country", and noted that it would be one of the biggest box office bombs of 2022, with industry experts blaming lack of marketing and the wide-release strategy.[25] TheWrap, while acknowledging its box office underperformance, noted the film could still turn a profit for MGM after it went to streaming, as the company spent only $6 million on domestic distribution rights.[26] In its second weekend, the film made $1.5 million (and a total of $1.9 million over the four-day Labor Day frame), dropping 47.1% and finishing 13th.[citation needed]

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 71% of 224 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Although its story isn't as impressive as its visual marvels, it's hard not to admire Three Thousand Years of Longing's sheer ambition."[27] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[28] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[23]

Peter Debruge of Variety said: "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."[29]

References

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External links

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  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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