Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022) review

Narratologist Alithea (Tilda Swinton) flies to Turkey to give a lecture (on how storytelling "makes up" for the gaps in scientific discovery), acquires a bottle from a merchant, accidentally opens it and releases a Djinn (Idris Elba) that grants her three wishes and tells her several stories: the first is where he describes how he was "imprisoned" by King Solomon, the next is about a slave girl, then he mentions two brothers (one developed a fetish for obese ladies, the other a murderous drunkard) and the final story centers on Zefir (Burcu Gölgedar), who was married to a much older man and asks the Djinn for knowledge.  While I appreciate any movie that defends the art of telling a narrative as a way of instructing others, it's entirely too smug and self-satisfied: the tales of old don't really "tie in" with the present situation, and although both leads are superb (we'd expect nothing less), the link between their characters is tenuous at best.  It is a colorful and visually appealing movie - the cinematography's courtesy of John Seale - that reminded me of the movies directed by Tarsem Singh (while ironically having similar flaws).  I'll say this: Ebert would have loved it.