4/10
An Arab sheikh with more money than sense wants to import
the sport and/or lifestyle of salmon fishing from cold and rainy Scotland to
the barren desert of Yemen. In the
meantime, the British government is floundering from scandal to scandal and greedily
seizes upon the idea of a cultural rapprochement between the West and the Arab
world through this fishing enterprise; it is even better that the sheik is
willing to foot the entire bill. The
messy details will be filled in by the Fisheries Department representative Dr.
Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) and an investment rep for the sheikh, Ms. Harriet
Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt).
Naturally, Dr. Jones is incredulous that anyone would think
it feasible to move 10,000 salmon from Scotland to Yemen and considers his
assignment a fool’s errand. Harriet’s
apparent upper class business school education prepared her not to stop and
question these silly survivability issues.
Oh, and out of nowhere see seems to speak fluent Mandarin Chinese. Two characters being (in)conveniently thrust
together like this is a classic setup for the romantic comedy genre. You expect to them to start out at odds, grow
fond of each other, overcome some last second conflict, and then float away
together with their aquatic metaphors.
Well, the joke is on the audience and the culprits are the marketing
execs.
The preview for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen shows it
as a joke a minute and lightly conceived romantic comedy; however, there is
barely any noticeable comedy and every scene left out of the preview leans more
toward the dramatic. There is an
Afghanistan side plot, an unhappy marriage, tribal terrorism, and emotional
depression. The character of Dr. Jones
is plainly painted as obstinate in the beginning both towards the project and
to Harriet because his character arc is required to end up softer and more
compassionate. In reality, even if the
good Dr. considered the salmon project lunacy, he would not be so overtly rude
to Harriet.
The plan’s financier, Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked) is an
obscenely rich man from Yemen prone to waxing philosophic about salmon. That kind of money can only come from oil
wealth, but Yemen has no oil reserves.
The plot never explains the source of the Sheikh’s money, not because it
is not consequential to the plot, but because it cannot. The screenplay could never find an Earthly
explanation of why a Yemeni sheikh could haphazardly plop down 50 million
pounds on a salmon project. The writer,
Simon Beaufoy, most recently adapted 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire into
scripts and even he chose to leave that tiny detail out of the script.
What comedy there is in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen comes
from the Prime Minister’s press secretary, Patricia Maxwell (Kristen Scott
Thomas). She is very good at what she
does, knows the angle of the story she wants planted in the papers before the
event occurs, and moves very quickly to make things happen. Kristen Scott Thomas hasn’t played a
character this snarky since Four Weddings and a Funeral. Unfortunately, Patricia vanishes a quarter ways
through the film and when she reappears towards the end, the plot has
unnecessarily shifted her from comedic to more bureaucratic.
The acting in this film is more than capable, especially
from McGregor since he is able to talk in his native Scottish dialect. Sadly, the screenplay is a mess and the tone created
by director Lasse Hallstrom resembles nothing from the misleading preview and
is much darker than the blindsided audience will be prepared for. Feel free to skip Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
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