George Miller’s impassioned series of short stories remember a past that never was; spellbound with romance and alure, only to return to a present that is; dull and unenigmatic.

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Sometimes, I forget how influential George Miller has been to me. As anyone with a pulse and a vague familiarity with cinema can attest to, Mad Max: Fury Road is a trail-blazing, spray-painting, and water-addicting crescendo of action; one of the few films to recapture the nostalgia from a 30-year-old franchise, going over and above the cash-grab mentality that is plaguing many other titles. But, as magnificent as the Australian wasteland may be, I tend to overlook his impact on my childhood (Happy Feet, Babe), forgetting that there is more to Miller than Mel Gibson battling in the arid Thunderdome; more to Miller’s quirky and fervent catalogue.

A passion project not set in the dystopian post-apocalyptic outback, Three Thousand Years of Longing (based on A. S. Byatt’s collection of short stories The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye) is an intertwined assemblage of quirky vignettes told as mythological fables – think Wes Anderson’s French Dispatch except it’s a Djinn’s memoirs rather than an artistic paper. The Djinn (Idris Elba) tells his life’s parables to a wide-eyed but cautious narrative scholar Alithea (Tilda Swinton), the pair sitting in comical bathrobes as the tales begin.

Each story, while contextually contained, adds hints of relevance to the overarching relationship between Alithea and her Djinn, but as magnificent as each novella is, their long-term purpose pales in comparison. As the Djinn poetically reminisces on the women he once loved, the screen transforms into a menagerie of creatures and spirits, of colours and magical cadence. Every memory burns with an unearthly passion, Miller capturing a mystique that has become his hallmark. Yet, the moment he returns to the present day, the fire quickly fades behind Swinton and Elba’s homely, comfortable, and uninspiring relationship. They don’t lack chemistry, simply the time it takes to form it, and the patience to ignore the excitement that each chapter brings and eventually forgets.

Once the fairy tales are over, Three Thousand Years finds itself stuck in the present’s rut, cobbling an ending that ties every thread together in a crude but passable knot. Anecdote after anecdote, Miller attempts to infuse a deeper meaning to the extravagant humdrum, hints and implications spread thinly throughout the various episodes, yet never cogently enough to grasp at my already-waning awe. Connections feel forced, like square pegs in round holes, grinding against the flowing history that the Djinn openly paints and crumbling the unforgettable foundations he has built, the dust blowing into the breeze as nothing more than a pretty picture.