‘100 Nights of Hero’ Review: A Mischievous Fairytale Laid Low by Its Withheld Approach

Resplendent in costume and production design, but shaky in overall execution, the star-studded fantasy romance “100 Nights of Hero” is the second feature from writer-director Julia Jackman. Based on the graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg, it takes its cues from “One Thousand and One Nights” (or “The Arabian Nights”) of West Asian folklore, responsible for such cultural mainstays as Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. However, in Jackman’s movie, these narrative layers aren’t nearly as fantastical as their forebears from the Islamic Golden Age. They serve as thinly veiled extensions for their fictitious storyteller: a Scheherazade stand-in, whose queer reimagining works far better in theory than in practice.

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