{"id":18750,"date":"2022-08-25T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=18750"},"modified":"2024-03-02T21:12:06","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T05:12:06","slug":"review-three-thousand-years-of-longing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-three-thousand-years-of-longing\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Three Thousand Years of Longing<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cMy story is true,\u201d she says, right up front. \u201cYou\u2019re more likely to believe me, however, if I tell it as a fairy tale.\u201d Her name is Alithea, and when we meet her, she\u2019s happily independent in her life and career as an academic \u2013 as a \u201cnarratologist,\u201d to be precise, as in one who studies the telling of stories (and what their telling tells us about ourselves). She\u2019s in Istanbul for a conference when she starts seeing strange, inexplicable things \u2013 and that\u2019s before she picks up the bottle in the antique shop. Later, while cleaning it in her hotel room, she unleashes the Djinn (Idris Elba), who informs her that, yes, he is there to grant her three wishes, anything her heart desires. He begins to run down the rules, but he doesn\u2019t need to; \u201cI\u2019m familiar with the concept,\u201d Alithea tells him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the set-up for George Miller\u2019s Three Thousand Years of Longing<\/em>, but it\u2019s not really what the movie\u2019s about, because God knows we\u2019ve all seen enough movies about genies and their three wishes, which Miller (and co-writer Augusta Gore, adapting A.S. Byatt\u2019s short story) knows. The real subject of the picture is storytelling, and that\u2019s also its main activity; Alithea is understandably curious about how the Djinn wound up in her hotel room, and in that bottle before it, so he tells her of his adventures (\u201cWell, it\u2019s quite a story,\u201d he tells her, which is an understatement) and he asks about hers (\u201cIt\u2019s not much of a story,\u201d she insists, to his reply, \u201cBut it is <\/em>a story. It\u2019s your story\u201d). And so it is perhaps appropriate that this all happens within the three-wishes story, because it is one of the most frequently told of all. And as connoisseurs of storytelling, they both recognize the truth: \u201cThere\u2019s not a story about wishing that is not a cautionary tale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering its fantastical premise and preponderance of eye-popping effects, it\u2019s sort of charming that so much of the film is spent on two people in cozy bathrobes, chatting in a hotel room. But the rest of the picture is the exact opposite of that, a wildly gonzo work of anything-goes glee. Some of the stranger detours don\u2019t quite land, but the film never lacks in ambition, and that\u2019s nothing to dismiss.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swinton is, as ever, fun to watch, even if she\u2019s doing a variation on what has become her regular thing. Even better, this is one of scant few occasions on which the big screen has captured what makes Elba such a special actor \u2013 his mixture of charisma, intelligence, and sincerity, the simple sadness with which he confesses, \u201cI made a mess of it,\u201d the straight-forward way he asks her, when she finally makes her first wish, \u201cIs it your heart\u2019s desire?\u201d It\u2019s a wonderful performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But this is Miller\u2019s show, a 108-minute combination of flex and sizzle reel. The sheer mastery of craft on display is frankly breathtaking \u2013 the ingenuity of the compositions, the inventiveness of the transitions, the deft and textured use of sound all combine to form that rarest of beasts, big canvas filmmaking with genuine personality. The costume and production design are ornate and delightful, but the picture never feels out of Miller\u2019s control; even in its most supple sequences, he fills the frame with tiny, clever throwaway props, beats, and gags. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If only it ended as well as it begins. Miller and Gore\u2019s script takes a third act turn that they can barely navigate \u2013 it just comes out of nowhere, and the chemistry required to pull it off simply hasn\u2019t been present. Once he takes that turn, Miller can\u2019t quite figure out how to end it in a way that makes both logical and emotional sense, and that flaw is particularly glaring in light of an especially weak epilogue that undercuts whatever poignancy is generated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But \u2013 and apologies if this sounds like a cop-out \u2013 one cannot review Three Thousand Years of Longing <\/em>under the same rubric as any other late summer movie. George Miller has been making movies since 1979, but most of them have been Mad Max, Babe, <\/em>or Happy Feet<\/em> films; in fact, the last time he worked outside of one of those franchises was thirty years ago, in Lorenzo\u2019s Oil<\/em>, which was based on a true story. None of this is to diminish those films, which are wild and ambitious, but they\u2019re franchise films nevertheless, beholden to all that entails. So what makes Three Thousand Years<\/em> so special is the chance, at long last, to see what Miller can do with these tools of outsized, free-form storytelling, when he\u2019s bound by nothing, and can go anywhere, and do anything. It\u2019s quite something.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B+<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

“Three Thousand Years of Longing” is in theaters Friday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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