Three Thousand Years of Longing (4½ Stars)

What would you do if a genie offered you three wishes? Would you ask for riches? Good health? Those are the things everyone asks for.

When Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) finds an ancient lamp while visiting Istanbul, she rubs it and out comes the genie (Idris Elba). When he asks for her wishes she's not so naive. As a scholar she knows all the tales of genies, and the wishes always turn out bad. She refuses to make a wish, telling the genie he's a trickster who wants to cause her harm. The genie tells her he needs the wishes, because if the wishes aren't made he'll be cursed to live as an invisible entity for the rest of time. Was that part of previous genie in the lamp stories? Alithea sees it as psychological pressure and still refuses to make a wish.

Alithea and the genie spend time talking to one another. Alithea tells her rather bland life story, focussing on an imaginary friend she had in her childhood. The genie tells the story of how he was first imprisoned in the bottle. He was in love with the Queen of Sheba, who was also a genie. She abandoned him for King Solomon, which broke his heart. In the tale Solomon was a great sorcerer. He trapped the genie in a bottle and cast him into the sea. Over the following 3000 years the genie was occasionally freed, but he was always put back in the bottle.

In his stories tragedy always struck the ones who made wishes. Alithea sees this as proof that the genie was a trickster, but he insists it wasn't his own fault. The people made wishes that were bad for them. He even tried to talk them out of wishes, but their greed made them insist.

But this isn't a typical genie in the lamp story. Alithea and the genie fall in love with one another, and he goes back to live with her in London. She doesn't make wishes, because he has to leave her after she's made her third wish. Was he lying about the curse after all? After watching the film a second time I can see a few discrepancies that I missed the first time in the cinema, but it's still a beautiful love story.

And they lived happily ever after?

Not quite.

But what would I wish for? I'm not sure. I need time to think it over. I don't need riches. Good health would be a blessing, especially after my sickness last year. And I'd like to have good hair again. It would be wonderful to be kept as a sex slave for the rest of my life. The genie says he isn't allowed to grant eternal life, but could he return me to my childhood while I retain all the knowledge I have now? That would definitely be one of my wishes.

I'll end with a small joke. An Irishman rubbed a lamp, and a genie offered him three wishes. It was a hot day, so he asked for a glass of Guinness. The Irishman took a big drink, and the genie told him, "It's a magic glass. However much you drink, it will always be full". The Irishman looked at the glass and it was still full. The genie asked him what he wanted for his other two wishes. The Irishman says, "That's great. I'll have another two glasses".

Success Rate:  - 2.6

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