A tale as old as time. Boy meets girl. Boy looses girl. Boy gets sealed into a brass jar for two thousand years. Okay, maybe not the usual story, but definitely an interesting one.

In 3000 Years of Longing a literary analyst finds an old glass bottle. The cap falls off while she (Alithea, played by Tilda Swinton) is cleaning it and out pops a Djinn (Idris Elba). But she has heard all the tales of djinn, and the mishaps that fall those who make wishes. She isn’t about to fall into the trap.

So the djinn tells her stories of his life. How he first became trapped in a brass vase, how his love betrayed him, and the subsequent years that he spent trapped…alone.

The Djinn longs for his freedom, but he can only be freed if someone makes three wishes. Unfortunately, they have to be wishes of great desire since it was his desire that cursed him to the bottle. But the hearts desire is a tricky thing. We crave things without fully understanding the consequences of acquiring them. And so each wish he grants sends him farther from his goal.

The visuals for 3000 Years of Longing are simple, but beautifully done. Simple sets with meaningful items, CGI only when it is impactful, and effective prosthetics to give the djinn an otherworldly feel.

While this story is told from the perspective of Alithea it is not about her. A mousy, librarian type woman who does not share much of her own life, she focuses her narrative on the djinn, and his story.

If I had any criticism of 3000 Years of Longing it is the character of Alithea. Her standoffish and aloof nature does not lead me to love her, or hate her. I feel… nothing…for her. Meanwhile I see all the desire, and need, for the djinn, and share in her love for him. But this lack of care for Alithea means the ending is a little odd. Why would a djinn that has love queens, beauties, geniuses, and spun magic through the vary fabric of the world… fall in love with a mousy librarian. Not to say this can’t happen, just that they did not show what qualities about her drew him to her other than a wish. And if it is just the wish… well… If you switched it to a man wishing for a woman to love him how would that look?

I am choosing to believe they just did a bad job of showing why he was attracted to her, or maybe since she is the one telling the story she didn’t understand it either, and that is why she does not have that part. Her stories are about others around her, not herself. Everything she craves moves around stories from old musty books.

There are a few other things that make the world building a little off. Why does Alithea see other creatures? No one explains that other than her brief encounter with an imaginary friend. Still, maybe it’s also why she prefers to live in books instead of with people.

In the end I feel a kinship with Alithea only because I prefer books to people most of the time, too. And the wonder of reading fables, and finding the spark of magic residing within them still exists.

Like “Big Fish” and other fantasy in the real world stories, 3000 Years of Longing adds that spark to the mundane. Worth the watch.