Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas, Amr Waked, Tom Mison

Dir. Lasse Hallstrom
Scr. Simon Beaufoy (adapted from novel of same name by Paul Torday)

Well, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy this movie. It was, at times, delightful. Both McGregor and Blunt were adorable. And Scott Thomas provided some wonderfully comic (if utterly ridiculous and random) moments. The story is interesting enough to reel you in and keep you hooked. But it was just all a little too contrived, predictable in large parts and somehow uncomfortably disjointed. It’s a lovely film to look at and you will laugh a handful of times, but it doesn’t quite work as the well-rounded romantic comedy I wanted it to be.

A visionary and extremely wealthy sheikh (Waked) has a dream of bringing salmon fly-fishing from his much-loved Scotland to his native Yemen. He employs consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Blunt) to help make his vision a reality. With no small amount of convincing, Harriet is joined by fishing expert and long-time public servant Dr Alfred Jones (McGregor) and the trio strike up a somewhat unlikely friendship. Added to the mix are the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary (Scott Thomas), desperate for a good news story out of the Middle East, a terrorist group intent on raining on the sheikh’s parade, and an army boyfriend missing in action (Mison). We are taken on a journey of faith – in fishing, in religion, in making the impossible, possible. With, as I mentioned, a few laughs along the way.

I’ve seen some pretty hard-going movies of late, so this couple of hours in the cinema was a welcome relief. That’s not to say this is simply fluff, in fact the filmmakers try very hard to make their audience think a bit, cry a bit and be indignant a bit. My major problem with this film was that particular mix, along with the laughs, made for a bitsy and disjointed experience. Apparently the source material is very good indeed and perhaps they were simply trying to chuck as much of it up on screen as possible. But, you know what, I think this movie would work best as a romantic comedy (and was certainly advertised as such) and it wasn’t handled well enough for the political satire and geo-political debate to complement that. As much as I loved Scott Thomas, her role was jarring and, at times, completely misplaced. The kind-of-boyfriend-but-not-really-missing-in-action was distracting and, ultimately, unbelievable. There was too much going on for my liking.

Having said that, when the movie did work, it worked very well indeed. The scenery was simply beautiful. The bureaucracy of the British civil service was nicely played out. I very much enjoyed the relationship between Dr Jones and his distant wife and felt it was perhaps the most realistic portrayal of the lot. McGregor and Blunt were magic together and their burgeoning friendship was the sweetest part of the movie. The whole film was undeniably hokey, but endearingly so.

In terms of acting duties, this film is a mixed bag. There was too much two-dimension for my liking. I won’t fault Scott Thomas, but can fault what she was given to work with – sure, some great one-liners beautifully delivered, but ultimately an out-of-place caricature. Mison too was horribly underdeveloped and was wooden with it. Waked was all soft light and wise words. Again, not necessarily his fault. Blunt was charming, as usual. But I do think the whole boyfriend sub-plot was a hard sell, for any actor. McGregor, for me, was the real stand-out. Perhaps because he had the most to work with – actual character development, for instance. But mostly because he is completely watchable and utterly engaging.

So, yeah. If you fancy a light Sunday afternoon flick, by all means see this movie. But this isn’t a classic British rom-com by any stretch of the imagination. It has its moments and I would certainly watch it again if I stumbled across it on tv.

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Alfred Jones: When things get tricky in my life, I talk to my fish.