Summary The film follows Dr. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton), a solitary, scholarly linguist and story analyst attending a conference in Istanbul. At a market she purchases a small glass bottle containing a captured djinn (Idris Elba), an immortal, shape-shifting genie who has been imprisoned for millennia. The djinn offers Alithea three wishes, as tradition demands, but what begins as a simple premise becomes a prolonged, philosophical negotiation: Alithea is skeptical of the wish bargain and, more importantly, curious about the djinn’s long life and inner life. Over the course of a single day and night, the pair converse, quarrel, and tell each other stories — the djinn recounts vast, cinematic vignettes from his 3,000 years of existence, and Alithea tells intimate stories about her marriage, loneliness, and the value she finds in narrative. The film culminates in Alithea making an unexpected choice that reframes what “wish” and “fulfillment” can mean.