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Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay: Emily Blunt and Ewan MacGregor star in director Lasse Hallström’s latest offering.
Against the Mainstream
A quirky story and excellent cast make “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” a nice catch Salmon Fishing in the Yemen ****
Rated PG-13 • Epic Theatre St. Augustine, Regal Beach Blvd.
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38 | folio weekly | APRil 17-23, 2012
on’t let the title fool you. “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” is not a documentary. It is, however, one of the most enjoyable films to open in Northeast Florida in the past few months. You might not have even noticed, since only one theater in Jacksonville (west of the beach) is currently screening it, and kudos to the multiplex in St. Augustine for making a screen available there as well. Paul Torday’s novel of the same name has been adapted for the screen by British scripter Simon Beaufoy, Oscar winner for “Slumdog Millionaire” (with which “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” shares more than a few virtues). Lest you think Beaufoy was a one-shot wonder, consider his other films, which include two more Oscar nominees (“The Full Monty” and Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours”) and the excellent “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.” A script by Beaufoy is reason enough for the knowledgeable filmgoer to seek out this gem, but “Salmon Fishing” has even more going for it in the person of its director Lasse Hallström, the Swedish-born filmmaker twice Oscar-nominated himself (“The Cider House Rules,” “My Life as a Dog”), whose other films include two of Johnny Depp’s earliest and best, “Chocolat” and “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” As quirky as its title might suggest, “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” concerns the efforts of multimillionaire Arab Sheik Muhammad (Amr Waked) to introduce salmon fishing (a decidedly cold-water sport) into his country. More than just an eccentric with money to waste, the sheik envisions the river and dam 2006 folioweekly associated with his project as a means of ultimately transforming his desert kingdom into a flowering garden. To assist him in the project, the sheik employs a young woman, Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt), to handle the financing. She in turn recruits Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a government fisheries expert, to render the dream into reality — a proposal he initially rejects as utterly ridiculous. However, when the prime minister’s public affairs director Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas) gets wind of the harebrained scheme, she immediately senses a feel-good story about the British government’s cooperation with a
struggling Arab nation — the kind of favorable press that may well obscure the nastier news coming out of the Afghan turmoil. Under pressure from her, Dr. Jones finds himself in league with Ms. Hetwode-Talbot and the sheik in pursuit of an impossible dream that, Dr. Jones comes to believe, just might work. “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” isn’t just about fish and sand. Like the other Beaufoy movies, it’s also a charming romantic comedy about an apparently mismatched pair finding each other against all odds. The ultra-staid Alfred, married to a woman more in love with her career than with him, is attracted to his beautiful collaborator on the dam project; she, unfortunately for him, is otherwise engaged at the moment, to a British soldier who’s MIA in Afghanistan. Yet another sidestory concerns dissidents in the Yemeni kingdom who are determined to sabotage the irrigation project and assassinate the sheik on the grounds that the whole undertaking represents a capitulation to corrupting Western influence. In addition to Beaufoy’s marvelous screenplay — a deft blend of romance, drama and cultural assimilation — “Salmon Fishing” is energized by Hallström’s best effort since his unfairly overlooked adaptation of Annie Proulx’s “The Shipping News” (2001). Though he utilizes a variety of visual tricks to good effect, including the occasional split-screen and some hilarious email messages, Hallström wisely lets his talented cast carry the burden of the film, both comic and dramatic. Ewan McGregor is dead-on as the repressed scientist-angler who discovers possibilities of love and life beyond his wildest dreams. Emily Blunt (“The Young Victoria,” “The Adjustment Bureau”) continues to demonstrate a charm and versatility reminiscent of a young Meryl Streep (whom the brunette British actress recalls in terms of talent as well as looks). And I would be remiss not to mention Egyptian actor Amr Waked, quite a charmer himself as the fly-fishing Arab sheik. Finally, there’s the hilarious Kristin Scott Thomas, who all but steals every scene as the prime minister’s control-freak flak. A great film that threatens to fly beneath the radar, “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” will justly reward the intrepid viewer who seeks it out. Pat McLeod themail@folioweekly.com