Upcoming fantasy film Three Thousand Years of Longing just had its premiere at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, featuring as one of the eleven films selected for screening outside of any competition. Based on the A. S. Byatt short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, the film stars Tilda Swinton as a no-nonsense academic attending a scholar’s conference in Istanbul, Turkey. While there, she meets a genie (Idris Elba) who offers the woman three wishes in exchange for his freedom. As with most stories that involve wishes, the ones that Swinton’s character makes results in surprising consequences for the two parties.
It’s certainly an attention-worthy premise, but critics had trouble deciding if it was executed in a satisfactory manner
Some had serious problems, others were starstruck.
Some critics were rooting for the film the whole way through, only for it to fall just short of their expectations.
If the genie had found the critics instead, we imagine at least two of those wishes would have been spent on tweaking at least part of the film.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is the twelfth film helmed by director George Miller, known for his multifaceted résumé consisting of the acclaimed Mad Max film series and the not-so-adjacent Happy Feet and Babe, as well as the sequels to those two films. Like most of his work, Miller was also the mastermind behind the film’s script.
With only a sea of divided critics for reference thus far, it looks like it will be up to audiences to decide how Three Thousand Years of Longing will be remembered when it releases to theatres in the United States on Aug. 31 later this year.
