Retrieved from MoviePosterDB
When I first heard of the film, the title alone reminded me of a book known as One Thousand and One Nights which as it turns out, is indeed an influence to the book the film is based on, titled The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye. Another thing that made this film catch my eye, from the trailer, was its stunning visuals . What sealed the deal for me watching this movie, however, was the fact that the two main characters were played by Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. Two wonderful actors in the same cast, I knew this movie was sure to be spectacular.
The film revolves around a British scholar, Alithea Binnie, who purchases a bottle that caught her attention while shopping for souvenirs in Istanbul. While cleaning it in her hotel room, she accidentally opens it, releasing a djinn. The djinn then tells Alithea his life story from before he was sealed in the bottle right up until he met her. The ratings were pretty good with IMDB rating it a 6.8% out of 10, and Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 71%. Now, let me say, the costume design, makeup, background and CGI were all phenomenal, and that in itself earns this film a 10 out of 10. Even the characters in the film were represented by actors in their same ethnic group, which was also noteworthy, but there were a few plot holes. For starters, Alithea mentions she suffers from hallucinations. In the airport, she sees a djinn who she confuses for a normal person, only to later see another one while she gives a lecture. Nevertheless, these two never show up again. What was the point of showing them at all? I thought they would try to push her towards the store where she would find the djinn to finally free him, but they just appeared spontaneously and disappeared just as unexpectedly. Also, we have no idea why she suffers from these hallucinations, or what causes them in the first place. Is her ailment due to stress or anxiety? Why is she hallucinating djinn, specifically? Does she hallucinate other things? Are we supposed to assume she’s not stressed, but that she rather has a gift? Regardless, she does mention that what’s happening to her started recently.
Once she opens the bottle and realizes the djinn is not a hallucination, he tells her to not fear him but to not treat him casually. Then come the rules. He can only grant her three wishes, as long as they do not include wishing for endless wishes, eternal life (because it is our nature to be mortal and his to be immortal), or the absolution of sin or ending of all suffering, because he is only a djinn, after all. She then confesses to him about a boy in her childhood that only she could see, who one day disappeared. I don’t know why that was important to the story. Are we supposed to assume he was a djinn or was he just an imaginary friend? She later says he isn’t a djinn so now, what was the point of her talking about her imaginary friend?
Unsurprisingly, she becomes skeptical and hesitant to wish anythingーas she should, considering the outcome of most stories and movies featuring wish-granting genies. The djinn tells her he doesn’t plan to trick her; that he just wants to be set free from his bottle. But it turns out that she needs to wish on something her heart truly desires in order for this to happen, but it appears she desires nothing. She has a home, a good job, and a successful career. The only thing missing in her life is a family and love. Despite her loneliness, she insists she’s fine. We soon learn that she and her ex-husband tried to have kids to no avail. For this reason , her ex said she was incapable of reading his feelings, and even went so far as to cheat on her, although she felt nothing upon his infidelity. At this point, we can pretty much tell that she’s a lonely soul, and that her imaginary friend was a depiction of her loneliness.
The djinn goes on to tell her stories of how he was imprisoned in the bottle, due to the fact he longed for the Queen of Sheba, and how King Solomon imprisoned him in the bottle for fear that he would interfere. Then he recounts what happened to him throughout his imprisonment in the bottle, and we come across historical figures of the Ottoman Empire. His first master is a young slave girl who wishes for the first son of Suleiman the Magnificent to fall in love with her and to bare his child. It seems that, in this take on the djinn, they can indeed play with someone’s free will. Sadly, the prince is killed by his father due to his favorite concubine’s schemes and the assassination of his loved ones. The djinn can save the girl if she makes a final wish, but she runs away only to be caught and thrown to the bottom of the sea. Since he couldn’t grant her last wish, he remains in the castle unseen and unheard; until a few hundred years later when a concubine finds his bottle. In his despair to finally be free and ask her help in the hopes of doing so , he scares her. This ultimately causes her to wish for his captivity at the bottom of the sea.Then he tells the story of a young woman who was the third wife of a merchant. It was kind of disgusting seeing such a young girl being married to a man that looked like he could drop dead any moment and how he forced himself on her. Throughout the course of this story, we see how the djinn falls in love with her. She wishes for knowledge. and here I saw the peculiar way she read books was the same way Alithea reads them, which made me wonder if she could be this woman’s reincarnation. Wishful thinking aside, it’s a big theory with no other evidence to back it up apart from the peculiar way they both read books. She then wishes to see the world as djinn do.
I can’t say whether she loved the djinn back or not; but, due to the fact she was pregnant with his child, I will assume she did. Right before she made her third wish, however, he stopped her. She was infuriated and felt like he was trapping her. He told her he would go so far as to trap himself in a bottle so she could have power over him. He loved her more than he wanted his own freedom. As he entered his bottle, however, she wished she could forget she ever met him. The ending of this story confused me. How did she feel he was trapping her? He was the only friend she had, and she was carrying his baby. It appeared that he genuinely wanted to be there for her. Like, make it make sense.
It’s quite sad though how all the people the djinn came across suffered horrible fates. It was kind of a play on the trickster djinn we all know, who puts a spin on their master’s wishes so they end up in despair. Even though he tried to give them what they wanted, they ultimately suffered and so did he.
The few minutes that are left of the movie revolve around the djinn and Alithea. Alithea decides on her first wish, and it is for her and the djinn to fall in love. At that moment, I’m thinking, she’s imprisoning him in a different way. She’s controlling his free will, but of course he says nothing and they have sex. He travels with her back to England,where she’s stopped by airport security. In the airport, a man looks at her suspiciously and inspects the bottle, and at this point I’m worried that she’s going to get the bottle taken from her and what’s left of the film is going to show her trying to retrieve it. Nonetheless, he returns her bottle. Why put him there if nothing was going to happen?
The life the two live is rather mundane. However, he’s visibly overwhelmed by all the noise and the electromagnetic waves in England, compared to where he was in Istanbul that didn’t have as many cell towers. But the electromagnetic waves are weakening him; and, although we may notice this, Alithea doesn’t have a clue until she finds him in the basement, both paralyzed and unresponsive. She uses her second wish to make him talk to her and when he does, she apologizes for forcing him to be with her. Her third and final wish is for him to be free and return to the land of the djinn. I found it rather heartwarming that her final wish was used for him rather than for her. The movie ends with their reunion after 3 years. He had finally regained his strength, and continued visiting her throughout her lifetime. Although this ending is sweet, the problem I had with it was that these two wonderful actors had zero romantic chemistry. Their interactions throughout the movies made it feel like two strangers living in the same house. Maybe it was the fact that she had forced her need for love on him that the two of them seemed so distant; but I think that the djinn truly did fall in love with Alithea in the end, even if the actors didn’t portray it that well. When the two met again, it seemed more like colleagues meeting on the street than two people that had once fallen in love. But apart from that, the acting was phenomenal and the storytelling was top-tier. It had excellent pacing that made me want to know what would happen in the next story. I would give this film a 9.5/10.