What I’m watching: a refreshingly different story from a great director

Date: 9/13/2022

In theaters: “Three Thousand Years of Longing”

Director and writer George Miller is perhaps best known for the “Mad Max” films, but for anyone who has pegged him as just an action director – which he is not – this film may be surprising.

“Three Thousand Years of Longing” is a meditation about love and wanting. It can be humorous and tragic, puzzling and straight forward. Throughout this production is a sense of wonder that unfolds as the story is being told.

It is also about the power of storytelling; what a good story can do for people.

Tilda Swinton is Alithea, a well-known scholar and teacher who specializes in the history and power of storytelling. During a lecture in Istanbul, she faints onstage when she sees a mysterious figure in the audience. She credits it to her over-active imagination.

She buys a sealed glass bottle at an antique market and brings it back to her hotel. She opens it accidentally and in it is a djinn – an entity that is also known as a genie.

Is this another hallucination or is this an actual djinn in her hotel room?

He (Idris Elba) offers her three wishes, once he has learned English from her television set and she is extremely cautious as she understands that in every story about a djinn and wishes, the person making the wishes regrets it.

The djinn, though, insists that he must grant three wishes so he will be free to go to the place all freed djinn go.

True to her profession, she wants to know his story and he seems glad to tell it.

The film is a romance, an unusual one, but a sincere one and it succeeds due to a clever literate script and two outstanding performances. Some performers would resort to routine or stereotypical performances, but both are able to make these characters fully rounded and sympathetic.

The roles give a great change of pace for both performers. Although Elba is very versatile, he is best known for more action-oriented roles, while Swinton is usually cast as bigger than life characters.

The film is also beautifully designed and audiences truly benefit from seeing it in theaters.

I very much urge you to consider see this film. It is a breath of fresh air in the current group of releases.

On Paramount+: “Honor Society”

This new coming-of-age comedy is actually well-written and conceived and has a nice twist to the script that pushes it out of the teen comedy groove.

Angourie Rice plays Honor, a high school senior determined to get into Harvard. She can increase her odds with a recommendation from her increasingly creepy high school guidance counselor Mr. Calvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) but there is a problem: there are three other students that he is considering.

Honor launches on a clever plan to upset her rivals in a way it affects their grades. She is not evil but calculating and determined that no one should stand in her way of making out of her small town.

In her way is a brilliant student Michael (Gaten Matarazzo) who is a bullied at the high school. She manages to become his lab partner in chemistry and throw him off his game by showing him affection.

I enjoyed the fact the movie presented potential cliches and then put them on their head. Director Oran Zegman shows great potential in her first feature film. Long-time comedy writer David A. Goodman’s script is subtle, surprising and funny.

Rice is the anchor of the film and delivers an outstanding performance.

It’s a lot of fun and well worth your time.