Curator Watchlist
A glossy, oddball romantic dramedy with an absurd premise, pleasant leads, and enough charm to make the concept go down easier than the plot mechanics suggest. It’s best approached as a light, star-driven fable rather than a believable political or fishing story.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 47m
Director: Lasse Hallström
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas
A fisheries expert is approached by a consultant to help realize a sheik's vision of bringing the sport of fly-fishing to the desert and embarks on an upstream journey of faith and fish to prove the impossible possible.
Lasse Hallström
Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas
A glossy, oddball romantic dramedy with an absurd premise, pleasant leads, and enough charm to make the concept go down easier than the plot mechanics suggest. It’s best approached as a light, star-driven fable rather than a believable political or fishing story.
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is one of those movies whose title does half the work and half the sabotage. The premise is so preposterous that the film has to keep leaning on charm, and fortunately Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt provide enough of it to make the whole enterprise feel lightly buoyant rather than dead on arrival.
Lasse Hallström plays the material as a soft-focus adult fairy tale, mixing romance, bureaucracy, and a dash of geopolitical wish fulfillment. The result is uneven, but not without appeal: the movie is at its best when it lets its leads spar, flirt, and sell the fantasy that impossible projects can still be worth pursuing.
What holds it back is the same thing that makes it memorable: the script keeps wandering into tonal oddities and implausible turns that are hard to ignore. If you’re in the mood for something polished, mildly eccentric, and easy to watch, it can work; if you want the premise to withstand scrutiny, it probably won’t.
Marcissus (1★) · 288 likes
at one point whilst fishing, Ewan's billionaire sheikh friend is almost assassinated by another guy hanging around in the bushes at the opposite side of the river, but not before EWAN MCGREGOR PULLS HIS FUCKING FISHING ROD OUT AND WHIPS THE WOULD-BE ASSASSIN IN THE FACE WITH THE END OF THE ROD FROM ACROSS THE FUCKING RIVER
eugenen (1.5★) · 151 likes
Want to stab everybody.
mckenna (3★) · 151 likes
Ryan Gosling wouldn’t shut up about this movie during The Fall Guy press junket, so I finally watched it
angela (3★) · 99 likes
emily blunt: h- me: okay okaY FINE!!! I’LL DO IT!!! I’LL WATCH YOUR DARN SALMON FISHING MOVIE!!!!!!! AND RATE IT HIGHER THAN IT DESERVES!!!!!!!
megan (2★) · 91 likes
almost as boring as actually salmon fishing in yemen
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