Featuring big stars such as Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba.
Our TV movie pick for tonight (Sunday, May 25) is Three Thousand Years of Longing, the film legendary director George Miller made in between Mad Max: Fury Road and the now in cinemas Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
Boasting one of the most intriguing premises of recent memory, the movie follows a British narratologist – someone who studies stories – named Alithea (Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton).
In Istanbul for a conference, she purchases an antique bottle at a market and, upon taking it back to her hotel room, she discovers that it contains a genie (Idris Elba).
Delighted to be freed from the bottle, the genie offers Alithea three wishes. In response though, Alithea says she is content with her life and does not need three wishes. She is also wary of the genie as most stories about them are cautionary tales.
To help put her mind at ease, the genie begins recounting his life story to Alithea. The movie jumps between Alithea and the genie’s conversations in the hotel room to flashbacks throughout the genie’s 3,000 years on Earth, leading to how he became trapped in the bottle.
Essentially Miller’s blank cheque movie after the runaway success of Oscar Best Picture nominee Mad Max: Fury Road, Three Thousand Years of Longing was made with a $60 million budget and it’s all up there on the screen. The film looks incredible, particularly the colourful and vibrant flashback sequences which inventively breeze through the genie’s experiences across thousands of years of history.
On top of this, Elba and Swinton have great chemistry and make for incredibly likable protagonists, with the movie also serving as an exploration of the nature of storytelling, romance and how life has changed throughout the ages.
Despite all these praiseworthy elements though, the movie was a box office flop, only grossing $20 million, perhaps because its ambitious, genre-bending and emotional story was difficult to sum up in its marketing. That said, it did earn generally positive write-ups from critics.
Three Thousand Years of Longing is airing on TV tonight on Channel 4 at 11pm. It is also available to watch on Apple TV and Rakuten TV.
Here are the other movies airing on TV tonight:
Little Women – RTÉ One – 9.30pm
Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott novel, starring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson and Florence Pugh.
Booksmart – BBC Three – 10.50pm
On the eve of their high-school graduation, two academic superstars and best friends realise they should have worked less and played more.
Little Fockers – E4 – 9pm
Nurse Greg is now the proud father of twins, but has yet to earn the respect of his wife’s stern father after 10 years of marriage.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard – ITV2 – 9pm
Ryan Reynolds stars in the comedy action thriller, alongside Samuel L Jackson, Gary Oldman and Salma Hayek.
Armored – Legend – 1.40pm
Crime thriller, starring Matt Dillon, Columbus Short, Jean Reno and Laurence Fishburne.
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