Salmon Fishing In The Yemen

EWAN McGregor plays a repressed civil servant who unwittingly becomes part of a sheikh’s unlikely dream in comedy Salmon Fishing in The Yemen (12A).

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen

The film sees McGregor playing Dr Alfred Jones, a fishing expert with Scottish roots, a scientific background and a fixation on larvae.

He is approached by consultant Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) to help realise a rich Yemeni sheikh’s dream of bringing fly-fishing to his Middle Eastern country.

Despite being unwillingly coerced into the venture, which is pushed through by Kristin Scott Thomas’s 10 Downing Street flunky, he eventually takes to his task with gusto.

His logical outlook on life is transformed as he works alongside the visionary sheikh to make the unlikely dream of fishing in Yemen’s desert wadis possible, and his pessimism is transformed into a determination to achieve the impossible.

Adapted from novelist and keen fisher Paul Torday’s book of the same name, the film also touches on politics in the region as the Government tries to hijack the project as a political tool and a way of fostering better relations between the two countries.

The film, directed by Lasse Hallstrom, is out tomorrow (Fri).