Taglines: Make the impossible possible.
The British government needs to find a good news story about British involvement in the Middle East to counter a bad one. Having her team search for her, Patricia Maxwell, the hard nosed communications director for the PM who tries to place a positive public spin on anything to make her boss look good no matter what it takes, decides on a story on salmon fishing in the Yemen.
Without her knowing the specifics, it concerns the want of extremely wealthy Sheikh Muhammed bin Zaidi bani Tihama, the royal head of Yemen, an avid sports fisherman, to introduce salmon into Yemeni rivers for fishing purposes. The Sheikh’s British investment consultants, Fitzharris & Price represented by Miss Harriet Chetwode-Talbot, requested the assistance of the British Department of Fisheries and Agriculture, most directly one of their more knowledgeable fisheries experts, the straight-laced and nerdish Dr. Alfred Jones, on the matter, he who in his own right is an avid sports fisherman and fly tying expert.
Despite Fred realizing the project is absurd, he is forced into secondment working solely on the project for Fitzharris & Price – at least at double his salary – or else he is fired, but he also realizing at the risk of his good scientific reputation. But after meeting the Sheikh and getting to know his mentality a little better, Fred begins to believe that this project, albeit expensive, may not be complete folly as he first suspected.
As Fred, Harriet and the Sheikh work through the known and unforeseen problems and obstacles of the project, both Fred and Harriet have their own personal issues with which they have to deal. Fred’s is an unsatisfying marriage, one which he and his equally staid and career focused wife, Mary Jones, have stayed in purely out of inertia and perhaps not knowing that they may want something more out of a spouse. And Harriet’s is the uncertain status of her boyfriend of three weeks, Captain Robert Mayers, who has just been deployed into a combat zone somewhere in the Middle East and who she vowed to wait for for however long he will be gone.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a 2011 British romantic comedy-drama film directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas and Amr Waked. Based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Paul Torday, and a screenplay by Simon Beaufoy, the film is about a fisheries expert who is recruited by a consultant to help realize a sheikh’s vision of bringing the sport of fly fishing to the Yemen desert, initiating an upstream journey of faith to make the impossible possible. The film was shot on location in London, Scotland, and Morocco from August to October 2010. The film premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. The film received generally positive reviews upon its release, and earned $34,564,651 in revenue worldwide.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012)
Directed by: Lasse Hallström
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Amr Waked, Rachael Stirling, Catherine Steadman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Jill Baker, Conleth Hill, Matilda White, Otto Farrant, Hamish Gray
Screenplay by: Simon Beaufoy
Production Design by: Michael Carlin
Cinematography by: Terry Stacey
Film Editing by: Lisa Gunning
Costume Design by: Julian Day
Set Decoration by: Rebecca Alleway
Art Direction by: Steve Carter
Music by: Dario Marianelli
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violence and sexual content, and brief language.
Distributed by: CBS Films
Release Date: April 20, 2012
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