I am faced with a daunting challenge this week. If I only focus on new releases, I can write a column about the enhanced 3-D version of star-crossed lovers onboard a doomed ship (Titanic), or an NR-rated Italian parable about male menopause (The Salt of Life), which sadly lacks the joie-de-vivre the late Marcello Mastroianni brought to similar roles, or the anemic last gasp (hopefully) of the “American Pie” teen-sex franchise where the now 30-something, former teens obsess about getting enough sleep, finding the right blender, or making sure every office cubicle gets a memo on-time (American Reunion).
Instead, I’m going share “Salmon Fishing In the Yemen” with you—a delightful little film that came out last week, and you probably haven’t heard about.
Financed by the UK Lottery, the movie is a satire—something the British have done well ever since Jonathan Swift wrote about a man waking up on a beach to discover himself tied up by a group of Lilliputians. As in all good satires, the characters are instantly recognizable, larger-than-life, stereotypes. We meet Harriett Chetwood-Talbot (Emily Blunt) first. She is sending an e-mail to a government fisheries expert named Dr. Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) asking him about the feasibility of transporting British salmon to the desert country of Yemen. She indicates this project will be funded by an oil-rich sheik (Amr Waked), who wants to fish for salmon in his native land.
Under a deadline to publish his article on Cadisflies, Fred writes back “No,” but by then, Harriett has literally left the building for a first date with Robert Mayers (Tom Mison), a Special Forces Captain waiting for his posting to Afghanistan. With protestations from Harriett, that “I never do things like this,” the couple soon spend most of their time in bed. Despite the distraction, Harriett manages to meet with the fishing expert, where she responds to his “unfeasible” assessment with “so it’s possible.”
Fred replies that it’s possible in the way that flying to Mars is possible.”
“How much?” Harriett asks.
“25, no 45, no 50 million…pounds,” Fred answers. “And I’d need a meeting with the engineers building the Three-Gorges Dam.”
With the sheik’s money, and the full support from Patricia Maxwell (Kristen Scott Thomas), the British Prime Minister’s unflappable press secretary (who is looking for an upbeat, UK-linked story from the Middle East), the fisheries expert shouldn’t seem so surprised when Harriett yanks him from his office desk for a meeting with the Three-Gorges engineers. Multi-talented, Harriett acts as the Mandarin interpreter.
During this time, Fred’s wife has left him with pate sandwiches in the fridge, and a perfunctory love-making that “should keep you sated” during the six weeks she will spend doing business in Geneva. Meanwhile, Harriett’s Captain has shipped out to an unspecified desert, and front-page headlines paint the Prime Minister as an enemy of British fisherman because he tacitly supports the shipment of 10,000 wild salmon to a far-off land.
Invited by the sheik to his Scottish castle for conversation, fly-fishing, and dressing up in evening clothes, the two men strike up an unexpected friendship, and have philosophical and practical discussions. Harriett and Fred reach a detente as well.
We also learn that not everyone likes the sheik’s scheme to build a dam, submerge a valley, and turn a part of Yemen into a region producing “cucumbers, grains and melons.” The sheik’s enemies hatch plans for his death and humiliation, and it is only Fred’s quick thinking (and well-practiced skill) that thwarts an attempted assassination.
Deftly directed by Lasse Halstrom with the same nuance he brought to “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” and written by Simon Beaufroy with the same cultural sensibility he brought to “Slumdog Millionaire,” we watch the unfeasible become possible before our eyes. Along the way, we consider the vagaries of love, the fickleness of fate, the importance of faith (in its myriad manifestations), and the satisfaction of having things turn out well in the end.
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