Although it?s set in the present, the characters in Lasse Hallstr�m?s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen seem to have been imported from a different time. The good ones behave in a courtly manner and speak in dignified tones and the rascals twinkle and flounce. Often the effect of Simon Beaufoy?s script (adapted from Paul Torday?s 2007 novel) is refreshing, due in no small part to the congenital irresistibility of the actors speaking his lines -- Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas. It?s when the adorably priggish Cary Grant type is accused of having Asperger?s by his plucky but labile future love interest and the benevolent Sheik bankrolling the duo?s wacky experiment is nearly assassinated by Yemeni jihadists that things get to feel a little pear-shaped.
Things open on a sprightly note: Harriet (Blunt), the attach� to a wealthy Arab Sheik (Amr Waked), taps off an email to Dr. Alfred Jones (McGregor), a fisheries scientist with a government job, about the Sheik?s desire to fill the Yemen River with North Atlantic salmon. Whatever the Sheik wants the Sheik gets, although his reasons are never really clear -- or convincing, anyway. Although all the salmon fishing any man could want is available at his English estate, we are supposed to believe the Sheik has a vision of bringing two worlds together. This is all British diplomatic relations guru Patricia Maxwell (Scott Thomas) needs to hear. After a decade of war in the Middle East, the Sheik?s plan looks like a human interest oasis in a PR desert.
Fred?s not having it, of course. Fred?s not having much of anything, including his awful wife (Rachel Stirling). Although McGregor is novel as the endearing but highly repressed nerd, his scenes with Stirling -- who treats Fred like a pet who…
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