It opens with a promise. Writer-director Julia Jackman creates a vibrant, handcrafted fantasy world that exceeds expectations through design, imagination and tactile detail. Dramatic costumes, picturesque sets, and clever decorative elements—like three moons hanging in the sky—work elegantly together to create a world that feels classic, mythical, but slightly off-center.
Visually, the film resembles a 1970s period drama, but it's set in the future and always opens up a little. This slanted aesthetic becomes the film's greatest strength, giving it a distinctive visual language that feels both familiar and alien. In these early stages, the film's look does a lot of the heavy lifting.
Set in a fairytale kingdom created by myth, the story follows Cherry (Maika Monroe), a young wife whose neglectful husband Jerome (Amir El-Masri) leaves for 100 days to “test” her fidelity. Left isolated in her ornate estate, Cherry's closest companion is Hero (Emma Corrin), a faithful maid whose insight and quiet emotional intelligence begin to fill the void left by her absent husband. Their connection deepens into something tender and forbidden, laying the foundation for the film's central emotional tension.
This dynamic disappears with the arrival of Jerome's friend Manfred (Nikolay Golitsyn), whose seductive charm and unclear motives immediately upset the household. What begins as a simple love triangle quickly evolves into a broader story about desire, freedom, and who will control the narrative of a woman's life.
In the first half, Jackman places his bets with confidence. The early dynamics of love, manipulation, longing and power imbalance are sexy, gripping and performed in tandem by actors who initially appear in sync. Monroe and Golitsyna sparkle in the fantasy-romance production, their scenes filled with equal parts seduction and suspicion. Meanwhile, Corrin's quiet gravity provides an important counterbalance. The film seems poised to be a vibrant and complex adaptation of the folk tale.
But as the project moves into its second act, the gears begin to turn without traction. The visual structure established early on can no longer support the weight of the story, and the narrative begins to drift. Scenes swirl without deepening, motives are blurred, emotions are smoothed out. The storyline of Monroe and Golitsyna, once the romantic core of the film, begins to resemble a garden left unattended. At this point in filmmaking, the story loses shape and dries up, leaving the performances stranded.
The film features nested stories inspired by One thousand and one nights: short folk stories designed to expand the world and comment on the role of women in the systems that limit them. These story segments within the story contain cameo images from Charlie XCX — fleeting, stylized, but divorced from the emotional core of the film. They add texture but feel disconnected and under-prioritized, distracting rather than deepening the central narrative. If the director is going to create a heightened, post-modern version One thousand and one nightsthen their story segments will need more energy and purpose. They should be his secret weapon, not an afterthought.
Despite the rich cast, few performances ultimately stand out. Monroe, capable of magnetism and quiet heights (such as her exceptional performance on very rough Long-legged), here read as low energy. Golitsyn switches between seducer and schemer, but never finds a clear path through the changing tone. Jones and Charli XCX are fun to spot, but disappear before they can make an impression. Corrin proves to be the only actor who consistently achieves clarity: poised, emotionally intelligent, and fully in touch with the Hero's inner world. Yet even they sometimes seem unsure of the film's broader intentions, as if they're playing out a story that hasn't quite finished deciding what it wants to be.
By then 100 nights of the hero reaches its conclusion, the breathtaking visual world and ambitious dream-like architecture struggle to overcome the narrative drift. What begins as a lush and creative retelling One thousand and one nights lands on a muted, disappointing note. The craftsmanship is impressive, the concept rich, and the cast talented. But the film too often leaves the actors sluggish and the plot not given enough attention, resulting in an experience that's undoubtedly enjoyable to watch but emotionally only hits the halfway mark.
