George Miller’s latest film ventures far from the expectations many fans might hold. It moves away from the rugged, high-octane energy of the Mad Max saga and lands in a lush, mythic landscape that nods to classic fables and the ornate storytelling spirit of One Thousand and One Nights. Yet even as it wears a romantic, epic cloak, the picture struggles under the weight of its own ambitions, trying to fuse philosophical meditation with lavish spectacle. The result is a film that aims high, but sometimes stumbles on the ground truth of its own narrative urge.
The film unfolds largely in a single room, where two central figures deliver most of the dialogue. Tilda Swinton portrays a literature scholar arriving in Istanbul, while Idris Elba embodies a centuries-spanning genie who unpacks a biography stretching across dynasties and continents. Their conversations—interrupted at intervals by embedded tales of deceitful sultans, furious princes, and subjugated concubines—give the movie a fractured, episodic rhythm. After each vignette Miller circles back to the same suite, breaking the tempo and sometimes eroding momentum. It is clear that Miller’s imagination remains boundless and his taste for the uncanny remains intact; the challenge lies in translating that impulse into a cohesive, emotionally resonant arc rather than a string of dazzling but narrow impressions.
Visually, the film leans into a heightened aesthetic that nods to perfume-ad prettiness, glossy production design, and the kind of visually saturated world found in certain high-concept fantasy films. Some viewers will celebrate this as a bold, almost dreamlike stagecraft that mirrors the mythic density of its material. Others may feel a distance, sensing a stylistic veneer that sometimes overshadows character depth. The presence of the two lead performers anchors the piece, yet their dialogue often dwells in abstraction. When they finally touch on the core questions—how stories shape identity, how human longing survives in an age of rapid technology, and how fear can warp perception—the answers arrive late and in a form that can feel more contemplative than clarifying. The film’s aesthetic choices—while striking—tend to oversell the surface and underplay the emotional weather that should color the central relationship and its dreams.
At its core, Miller seeks to illuminate the value of storytelling itself. The narrative repeatedly asks whether our most essential desires are endangered by a world of screens, algorithms, and rapid information, and whether human connection can endure Brexit-era divisions and the currents of modern skepticism. The questions are worthy; the intention is clear. The execution, however, can feel turgid, as if the film is diagnosing its own themes ahead of time rather than letting the characters inhabit them with living, breathing nuance. The result is a conversation that sometimes talks past the audience rather than inviting them into a shared, transformative experience. In a love story, the most compelling truth usually comes from the interplay of two living, feeling minds: a dynamic that remains, at moments, elusive here. The film’s reverence for storytelling is evident, but the best homage to the craft would be a narrative that lets the lovers’ inner lives breathe and articulate their connection through action as well as discourse. Some may leave with a lingering sense of beauty and wonder; others may feel the piece promised more than it delivered and wish for a tighter emotional throughline to accompany its rhapsodic surface.
Ultimately, the film stands as a testament to Miller’s unapologetic vision and his willingness to take risks with form. It is less a conventional narrative than a portrait of ideas taking shape through dialogue, gesture, and spectacle. For those who crave a steady plot and a clear emotional payoff, the experience may require patience and a willingness to meet the movie halfway, accepting its depth as a kind of still-life meditation rather than a brisk, plot-driven drama. And for viewers who relish lush visual storytelling and the thrill of a dreamlike journey into myth, there remains much to admire: a world built with meticulous care, performances that carry weight even when the script wanders, and a reminder that cinema, at its most generous, can ask big questions even when it does not always supply easy answers. The film’s ambition, in that sense, is not to deliver a tidy resolution but to spark a conversation about the power and peril of the tales we tell each other, year after year, century after century. [Source: contemporary film criticism]