MGM has just released the official trailer for the intriguing film, Three Thousand Years of Longing, scheduled to hit theaters on August 31st. Directed by George Miller, the film debuted today at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and is based on A.S. Byatt’s short story, The Djinn in the Nightingales Eye. An epic fantasy romance, Three Thousand Years of Longing stars heavy-hitters Idris Elba as the Djinn and Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton as Alithea, an academic content with leading a life of reason and logic.
While attending a conference in Istanbul, Alithea purchases a trinket in a grand bazaar. Inside is a Djinn who “offers her three wishes in exchange for his freedom,” according to the official plot summary. “This presents two problems. First, she doubts that he is real, and second because she is a scholar of story and mythology, she knows all the cautionary tales of wishes gone wrong.” The Djinn pleads his case by telling her fantastical stories of his past. Eventually, Alithea comes around and makes a wish that surprises them both.
This long-awaited film from George Miller, who directed Happy Feet, Happy Feet Two, and Mad Max: Fury Road, employs a whole host of eye-popping special effects. Miller provided some insight into what Three Thousand Years of Longing is at its core, with the filmmaker describing the tale as “a fairy story” that has a lot more going on under the surface. “What I saw in the short story was that it probed a lot of stuff,” Miller explained. “There was a lot of detail, in a relatively compact narrative, about all the mysteries and paradoxes of being human, or of being alive as a human. And, of course, it was allegorical; it’s a fairy story.”
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