This is our last screening before Christmas. I've not had a chance to read the book or to see the film so my notes - of necessity - are somewhat briefer than usual. Hopefully they will provide enough of an incentive to bring in an audience.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
UK 2011 112minutes
Director: Lasse
Halstrom
Starring: Amr Waked, Emily Blunt,
Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas and Rachael Stirling
“Salmon
Fishing in the Yemen has a similarly soft-tummied feel to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel; it’s
perhaps best described as a second-tier Ealing Comedy shot by the Boden
catalogue.”
Robbie
Collins
Dr Alfred Jones (Ewan
McGregor), a salmon expert in the British fisheries is engaged by Sheikh
Muhammed (Amr Waked) to introduce 10,000 salmon into a river in the Yemen so
that he can go fly fishing in his own country.
Jones sets to work with Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) a
management consultant employed by the Sheikh, and as the project progresses
they become emotionally entangled.
The screenplay by
Simon Beaufoy is based on the debut novel by Paul Torday which was an
unexpected best-seller in the UK. However
Beaufoy, who also wrote the scripts for The
Full Monty (1997) and Slumdog
Millionaire (2008) loses the eccentricity of the source novel and refashions the central relationship into one familiar from other romantic
comedies: it is clear from their first meeting what is destined to happen
between Jones and Chetwode-Talbot.
Director Lasse
Halstrom made his international name with My
Life as a Dog (1985), made in his native Sweden, although prior to that he
had directed more than 30 music videos for the pop group ABBA. Following the success of My Life as a Dog Halstrom has worked in the US where his films have
included The Cider House Rules (1999),
from the novel by John Irving and Chocolat
(2000) from the novel by Joanne Harris; both of these films received Oscar
nominations for Best Film. His next film
is a thriller called The Hypnotist
which is to be made in Sweden.
