The first two-thirds of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen are quite good, but around that 70-minute mark it’s as if screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) handed off script duties to someone that has only watched horrible romantic comedies their entire life. I’m not sure I’ve ever been this high on a movie to come crashing down to such lows so quickly. I would easily rate the first half of this film somewhere in the “B+” range, but the final third is an unequivocal “F”.
Loaded with metaphors from the dialogue to the imagery, Lasse Halstrom (Chocolat) is certainly having fun directing this adaptation of Paul Torday’s book, and it is a film to have fun with, which makes my disdain for the ending even more anguishing. At the center of the story is Alfred (Ewan McGregor) and Harriet (Emily Blunt). Alfred is a fisheries expert in a dead end marriage and Harriet is a spirited representative of an Arab Sheikh (Amr Waked) hoping to introduce salmon and sport fishing into the Yemen.
Alfred, hardly the visionary, scoffs at the idea and rejects it flatly. But Harriet’s determined nature and not to mention a fair bit of political pressure from PM press secretary Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas), who’s interested in exploiting the “Anglo-Yemini cooperation,” results in Alfred venturing knee-deep in the project with the Sheikh’s money to burn.
As would be expected from a film of this sort, Alfred and Harriet grow closer as time goes on and the project begins to take shape. Fishing is used as a metaphor for everything and when it isn’t being used we’re taught lessons on spirituality over dinner. But, again, it all comes back to how the film ends.
Wrinkles are thrown into the works that I would have expected from a film with a lesser first two acts. It’s hard for a romantic feature to avoid being cliche and I’d argue most fail, but it’s a matter of being interesting above those cliches that makes them work. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen was on the right track until it let the cliches overrun not only the storyline, but the relationships the story had built along the way.
To that point, I am convinced you can put Emily Blunt opposite almost any actor of caliber and she will stand with them and frequently above them. Opposite Matt Damon in The Adjustment Bureau the two were stars as Damon did everything he could – fate be damned – to be by her side and you cheered him on. Here, McGregor’s character is on a similar mission and Blunt is able to create a character you can believe would be wanted and desired and on top of that, she creates a character you can believe.
McGregor is also great in his slightly neurotic role as Alfred, Amr Waked is peaceful and serene as the Sheikh Muhammed and Kristin Scott Thomas gets plenty of laughs with her overbearing and pushy persona as well as a few scenes where she’s seen instant messaging political strategies with the Prime Minister.
None of the actors are the problem, the problem occurred before filming began and the choice was not made to send this thing back for a third act rewrite, asking for something that doesn’t take the audience for a group of idiots that don’t know how things are going to end once all is said and done. Perhaps the film plays out just as the book does, but that’s the beauty of adapting it for the big screen. You can fix problem spots as opposed to making them more glaring.
It’s a shame Salmon Fishing in the Yemen gets so much, so right only to throw it all away. It’s hard enough to get a romantic story right, but films like this continue to prove that the more junk you try to pack into your story the worse off it’s going to be. You could probably chop 15-20 minutes off the end of this film, avoid any political and melodramatic trappings and have a perfectly fine feature well worth recommending. As it is, if you decide to watch, all I can say is enjoy the first two-thirds and I hope you can accept what follows.
