FISH & FAITH : “Salmon Fishing In The Yemen”

Stuffy government fisheries scientist Fred is asked by a fishing-obsessed Arab Sheik to do the seemingly impossible – introduce British salmon to the Wadis of the Yemen. Despite considerable trepidation, Fred is finally won over by the charismatic Arab, who reveals that fishing brings him closer to God, and he hopes it will have the same effect on his countrymen. Fred also begins to fall for the Sheik’s beautiful legal representative Harriet; and so he rises to the Sheik’s eccentric challenge, casting off his English reserve on a transformative journey of self discovery and late blooming love.Based on a Novel by Paul Torday

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) Directed by Lasse Hallström Starring Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas and Amr Waked

Official Trailer 1:

Official Trailer 2:

Plot :

Dr.Alfred Jones is a henpecked, slightly pompous middle-aged scientist at the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence in London when he is approached by a mysterious sheikh about an outlandish plan to introduce the sport of salmon fishing into the Yemen. Dr. Jones refuses, but the project, however scientifically absurd, catches the eye of British politicians, who pressure him to work on it. His diaries of the Yemen Salmon Project, from beginning to glorious, tragic end, form the narrative backbone of this novel; interspersed throughout are government memos, e-mails, letters, and interview transcripts that deftly capture the absurdity of bureaucratic dysfunction.

With a wickedly wonderful cast of characters—including a weasel-like spin doctor, a missing soldier and his intrepid fiancée, and Dr. Jones’s own devilish wife—Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is the whimsical story of an unlikely hero who discovers true love, finds himself first a pawn and then a victim of political spin, and learns to believe in the impossible.


Teaser 1:

Teaser 2:

  

******************************

******************************

EXTRAS & INTERVIEWS

******************************

******************************

Ewan McGregor – Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Interview :

Emily Blunt – Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Interview

Lasse Hallström –  Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Interview:

Amr Waked –  Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Interview:

******************************

******************************

FISH & FAITH

******************************

******************************

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen – review by  Catherine Shoard (guardian)


Paul Torday’s debut novel gets the Lasse Hallström treatment

After ChocolatWhat’s Eating Gilbert Grape? and The Cider House Rules, Lasse Hallström moves on to the fish course with a yarn about a repressed civil servant roped into a project to introduce salmon fishing to the wadis of the Yemen Highlands. It’s yet another adaptation of a mid-market holiday read. But it adds if not exactly spice to the Hallström recipe, then certainly some depth and palate.

Paul Torday was 59 when he published this, his debut novel, and scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy has retained much of his source’s salt and smoke.

Ewan McGregor is Dr Alfred Jones, a suburban sceptic with Scottish roots, a scientific background and a larvae fixation.Emily Blunt is Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, the management consultant representing the wishes of a minted sheikh with a passion for salmon. And Kristin Scott Thomas the No 10 flunky on whose orders the project is pushed through.

“Find me a good news story about the Middle East,” she barks at a roomful of lackeys, prompting a nice cutaway to one of them googling “good news story about the Middle East”.

Jones’s wild requests – £50m for the initial infrastructure, a meeting with the engineers behind the Three Gorges Dam (“My Mandarin’s a little rusty,” blushes Blunt) – are all met with an amazing complicity, and McGregor does a fine, gentle job on the journey from fogeyish social ineptitude through bafflement and then pleasure at the world of high finance and spin. This is his first truly middle-aged part (he’s now 40) and it suits him surprisingly well.

Blunt keeps acool head on the hair pin bends of her inevitable switch from mild irritation ather colleague to deep attraction, and Scott-Thomas chows down on a panto role with gusto.

But the political brushstrokes here seem very broad; likewise those involving Jones’s careerish wife, honking on her trombone, ignoring his broodiness to tap on her Blackberry, saying “that should do you for a while” after they’ve had largely-clothed intercourse.

Similarly, there’s a slight unease about how the film copes with its cultural negotiations: the friendly sheikh says he loves fishing because it cuts through western class barriers (as well as, at one point, that he has “too many wives to know when a woman is not happy”).

Hallström wheels out the “swimming against the tide” visual metaphor once too often, too, and there’s some drop-off in pace towards the end. But this isn’t half as gooey as one might expect, and its standing ovation at Toronto suggests that even if some Brits find the whole thing a bit rich, the export market looks likely to lap it up.

Related Blogs on « British Films » :

ROYALTY ON SCREEN: Madonna’s Bio Epic Romance on Edward VIII & Wallis Simpson
 
IRON LADY: Firstlook at Meryl Streep’s new role as Maggie Thatcher

PREMIERSHIP ON SCREEN: Michael Sheen as Tony Blair in “The Special Relationship”

PRESIDENCY ON SCREEN: Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland”

Meet Iranian Singles

Iranian Singles

Recipient Of The Serena Shim Award

Serena Shim Award
Meet your Persian Love Today!
Meet your Persian Love Today!