Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012)

At the preview screening for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, I was handed a free copy of the novel the film is based on, which I immediately decided I would give to my mother. That should tell you all you need to know about the target audience.

Ewan McGregor plays Dr. Fred Jones, a fisheries expert for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. One morning he receives a nicely-worded email from Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt). She works for a consultancy firm that represents Sheikh Muhammad (Amr Waked), an eccentric Yemeni businessman who dreams of bringing salmon to the deserts of Yemen. Dr. Jones replies that such a project would be "fundamentally unfeasible", repeating as such to his wife Mary (Rachael Stirling) and his boss Bernard (Conleth Hill a.k.a. Varys from Game of Thrones). When a terrorist attack at a mosque in Afghanistan threatens to bring another round of bad news for the government, the Prime Minister's press secretary, the highly strung Patricia Maxwell (Kristin Scott Thomas), decides that they need some good news from the Middle East for a change. Drawing blanks, she eventually discovers the Sheikh's salmon fishing proposal and orders Bernard to proceed at full steam. Dr. Jones is ordered to meet Harriet. He does and again rubbishes the plan. Bernard, acting on orders from on high, gives Dr. Jones an ultimatum: be seconded to Harriet's firm and work on the salmon plan or be sacked. His marriage strained and his wife working in Switzerland, he reluctantly accepts.

Harriet, meanwhile, is in a relationship with Captain Robert Mayers (Tom Misom), who is stationed in Afghanistan. Dr. Jones arrives on secondment and she manages to convince him that the Sheikh's vast wealth and the presence of a dam means that the project is "plausible". They meet the Sheikh and Dr. Jones is slowly convinced that he and the project aren't quite as crazy as he first thought. Things almost fall apart when Captain Mayers is reported missing in action but the two go to Yemen to oversee the final stages of the project. Just before he leaves, his wife returns from Switzerland and confronts him about his relationship with Harriet. He admits that he's falling in love with her and they separate. In Yemen, the project initially seems to be a success before it is sabotaged by terrorists and fails. Captain Mayers, recently rescued from Afghanistan, makes a dramatic reappearance just as Dr. Jones declares his love for Harriet and she has to decide who she wants to be with as he must decide whether he wants to stay in Yemen and see the project to completion or return home to Britain.

Not only had I never read the novel of the same name, I had no idea that it wasn't written in prose but as a collection of interviews, official documents, diary entries and emails. While the narrative structure of the novel is quite interesting, the same cannot be said for the film. It's typical rom-com nonsense: utterly predictable and about as strenuous as lifting a spoonful of ice cream from the bowl to your mouth. McGregor and Blunt are pleasant and have a nice chemistry between them but they're never believable as lovers as their off-screen friendship seeps through. The "culture clash" between the two of them is suitably summed up by their names: Harriet Chetwode-Talbot and Fred Jones. Unfortunately, that's as subtle as the film gets, resorting to crude metaphors to convey messages about love and faith. Really, the only bright spot is Kristin Scott Thomas' brilliantly acerbic press secretary, from whom almost all of the laughs come.

Ridiculous, fluffy, sugary, silly, predictable nonsense. The cast at least look like they had a good time making it and if this is your sort of thing, you'll spend an enjoyable hour and forty-seven minutes watching a film about bringing fish to a desert.

5 out of 10.

(500) Days of Summer (2009)

Sometimes all it takes for a film to rise above dozens or hundreds of similar films is a gimmick. With (500) Days of Summer, that gimmick is a nonlinear narrative. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Tom Hansen, a depressed and lonely greeting card writer who meets Summer, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype played by perhaps the archetypical MPDG, Zooey Deschanel. We are told straight away that Tom and Summer broke up and that this is the story of what happened. The film skips back and forth over the span of their 500 day relationship, examining their differing attitudes to love, commitment and their relationship.

Gimmick aside, (500) Days of Summer is your standard bittersweet romantic comedy. Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are very good as the doomed lovers and the shifts back and forward make for a refreshing change, but it's all been done before: boy finds girl, boy looses girl, boy moves on with new girl. There are, however, two stand-out scenes in the film.

The first is an absolutely fantastic and completely spontaneous song-and-dance number after Tom and Summer have sex for the first time. Tom emerges from his house, smiling and strutting down the street to You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates. Fountains burst into life and strangers high-five and shake hands with him before a brilliantly choreographed flashmob-style dance erupts around him accompanied by a marching band and a pair of animated birds. As the number ends and everyone drifts away, Tom smiles at the camera, breaking the fourth wall and bringing to an end the ultimate "just had sex" scene.

The second is a scene later in the film. Tom and Summer have drifted apart, but she has invited him to her flat for a party. He puts on his finest, wraps her a gift and sets off. "He believed that this time, his expectations would align with reality", the narrator tells us. The screen splits in two, with the left-hand side labelled "Expectations" and the right-hand side labelled "Reality". They occasionally match up, but mostly they are the mirror opposite of each other. His expectation of sitting and talking quietly with Summer is contrasted with the reality of sitting at the opposite end of the table from her, making inane small talk with her friends about the job he hates; his expectation of looking out over the city with her contrasts with his reality of gazing out over the balcony, alone, as Summer chats with other guests and his expectation of the two of them moving somewhere more private and kissing is overwhelmed by reality. As the camera pulls back and turns to show reality from Tom's perspective, expectations is slowly wiped away and the split screen ends just as his expectations are overtaken by reality - she has become engaged to another man. Heartbroken, Tom storms out, walking off down the road and stopping in the middle of it. As he stands alone, his back to the camera, the image is painted over with a black and white drawing of the scene and then everything else is erased, leaving a single black figure standing in the shadowy, foggy remnants of the drawing, before he too, fades. The scene is accompanied by Hero by Regina Spektor, a haunting song that makes for the perfect accompaniment.

(500) Days of Summer is a fairly ordinary story lifted up by strong performances, an unusual narrative structure and two really memorable scenes. The whole is often greater than the sum of its parts. Here, the whole is made greater by some of the parts.

7 out of 10.