Perhaps the first fish-out-of-water comedy actually involving angling, the romantic charmer “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’’ casts Ewan McGregor as a socially maladroit UK fisheries expert recruited to realize a wealthy sheik’s mad dream of bringing sport fishing to the deserts of the Middle East.
McGregor’s character, Dr. Alfred Jones, isn’t at all shy about vehemently turning down the job — and repeatedly insulting Harriet (Emily Blunt), the brisk young career woman offering it on behalf of the sheik.
But the prime minister’s press secretary (Kristin Scott Thomas) thinks the plan would be good p.r. after a fiasco in Afghanistan.
Faced with the loss of his government pension, Jones reluctantly goes along with the lucrative offer, assuming that Harriet and the sheik (the wonderful Amr Waked) will balk at the astronomical price tag he’s quoting for the project.
They don’t.
Gradually, our hero is won over by the deeply spiritual sheik’s faith in his impossible dream — and even more by his employer’s comely facilitator — as they gradually overcome a series of obstacles (including British anglers’ objections to exporting 10,000 wild salmon).
Their professional distance — and her professional hauteur — suddenly disappears when her soldier fiancé is presumed dead in Afghanistan.
Harriet falls into Jones’ arms as he conveniently suffers a midlife crisis after a separation from the childhood sweetheart to whom he’s long been married.
The stars’ chemistry and relaxed performances — it helps that the actors are more or less using their native accents, for once — get you past the film’s more awkward sequences. Especially a terrorist attack on the dam that’s been built for the salmon-fishing project.
Director Lasse Hallstrom (“Chocolat’’) is a master of schmaltz, and not exactly one of my favorites.
But screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (“Slumdog Millionaire’’) introduces just the right note of astringency via Scott Thomas’ cynical spin doctor, who hilariously sweeps into Yemen for a surprise p.r. blitz that has unforeseen consequences.
“Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’’ isn’t as sharply satirical as the epistolary Paul Torday novel on which it is based. But trust me: These are characters with whom it’s a pleasure to spend a couple of hours.