Terraforming Right Here On Earth: Specific Projects & Obvious Romances Come Together For Salmon Fishing In The Yemen!

The Good: Interesting concept, Good acting, Moments of characters
The Bad: Pacing issues, Moments when characters seem like “types” as opposed to individuals
The Basics: In another film ruined by the trailer, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen puts two unlikely people together to create a miracle in the desert.


As a movie reviewer, there are numerous films that I have ample opportunities to go see films, usually well-before they open to wide release. Sometimes, I forego the opportunity, especially since I moved to Michigan and getting to the various screenings is a bit harder for me than it was in New York. One of the films I had at least a dozen opportunities to see was Salmon Fishing In The Yemen and I just never did. I heard the premise and when I saw the preview trailer for the movie, I felt like it was one where the entire movie was shown in the trailer. And, for the most part, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen is given away in its entirety by the trailer.

That said, the elements that are not in the trailer are the largely extraneous elements of the film, which is based upon a book I have not read. In many of my reviews, I refer to “pacing” as an issue with a movie and pacing is an issue with Salmon Fishing In The Yemen. I feel compelled to note that “pacing” does not mean the movie is long or even that it feels especially long, but if it moves along at an irregular clip, that becomes a serious issue with how the movie is assembled, how it is paced. Salmon Fishing In The Yemen is very much a film where the pacing is an issue in that by the time the film resolved everything the viewer seriously cares about, there is half an hour more material to go. Unfortunately, the last half hour of the film is an anchor that takes an enjoyable concept that sped along and beats the story and characters to death. The only redeeming value to the last half hour is that the film shows the consequences of the execution of the premise, as opposed to simply setting the idea up, playing it out and leaving it without any sense of value at the end.

After Dr. Alfred Jones rejects Harriet’s request to help a Sheikh bring salmon fishing to the Middle East, the UK’s foreign press office gets ahold of the request. Eager to distance themselves from the United States in the wake of the beginning of the U.S.’s war in Afghanistan, the press secretary, Patricia Maxwell, leaps on the idea and begins promoting it. When Jones is forced to take a meeting with Ms. Chetwode-Talbot at Fitzharris and Price, he is stymied by how prepared she and Sheikh Muhammed actually are to proceed. Threatened with being fired from his cushy government job, Jones takes on the herculean task of aiding in the Yemeni Salmon Project.

When Harriet’s boyfriend is called out to Afghanistan, she and Jones begin working together. His snarky attitude about the project leads to initial friction between the two. But, as his relationship with his wife falls apart, he finds the opportunity in the Yemen forced upon him by Maxwell, who needs the positive Anglo-Yemen story for the Prime Minister’s office. As the project progresses, Harriet and Alfred work together and take meetings with various engineers, fish experts, and financers from around the world to make the dream in Yemen a reality! When Harriet’s boyfriend goes M.I.A., Fred and Harriet find themselves saved by Sheikh Muhammed’s vision.

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen is a mess of “will they or won’t they” conceits. Continued interest in the film is based upon dragging out the answers to the questions: will they or won’t they? Will Alfred join the project or not? Will Fred’s incompetent boss actually find salmon they can use? Will Robert’s body be found? Will Alfred leave his wife? Will the salmon swim? The concept is not at all a new one, but Salmon Fishing In The Yemen does seem especially loaded with the conceit.

As much as it is a story of an ambitious project and ridiculous public relations nightmare, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen is a contrived romance that utilizes its setting, if not its characters, especially well. Given that Alfred is instantly characterized as a humorless, empirical science-based man who uses logic instead of faith, his journey is obvious and contrived, even without the element of Robert. Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, like Quarantine (reviewed here!) becomes another film where the movie is actually ruined by the movie poster (or DVD cover); the casual, obvious camaraderie of Alfred and Harriet in the moment captured for the promotional materials, it makes it clear that there is an unlikely friendship, at the very least, in the movie. Salmon Fishing In The Yemen might not have been so blasé had the film made an effort to have Harriet or Alfred take on a mentor role as opposed to an obvious romantic relationship.

The acting in Salmon Fishing In The Yemen is good. Ewan McGregor appears with a thicker accent than ever before and he is convincing. Emily Blunt is fine as Harriet, but she is never convincing in the film as a lawyer. Harriet is a fine-enough character, but she is a lawyer and that aspect of her character is severely neglected in favor of making her a pretty face and an obvious love interest for the apparently cold-hearted Fred. Amr Waked plays the revolutionary Sheikh Muhammed with a subtlety that is appropriate and well-conceived. The role of press secretary Patricia Maxwell is one of Kristin Scott Thomas’s less-inspired roles.

On DVD, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen has two featurettes: one on the making of the film, the other on the novel and its transition to film. Neither are at all incredible. Then again, while Salmon Fishing In The Yemen is not bad, it is not an incredible film, either.

For other works with Emily Blunt, please visit my reviews of:
Looper
The Adjustment Bureau
Charlie Wilson’s War
Dan In Real Life
The Devil Wears Prada

5.5/10

Check out how this film stacks up against others I have reviewed in my Index Page where movies are organized from best to worst of all time!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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It Must Be Valentine’s Day Already, Because There’s Yet Another Film Based Upon A Nicholas Sparks Book On Screen: Safe Haven

The Good: Sense of tension and consequence to the “big secret.”
The Bad: Stiff acting, Overbearing soundtrack, Telegraphed characters, Formulaic plot
The Basics: The latest adaptation to a Nicholas Sparks novel is a disappointing romantic drama called Safe Haven that is not enough to shelter the viewer from Sparks’ successful, but droll, formula.


I am convinced that much of the misery of women in the world today could be alleviated by the gender not setting itself up for utter disappointment so regularly. Few groups so consistently vote against their own self interest as women (guess what?! Socialized medical care and free school lunches are good for single mothers!) and on the sociological/emotional level the expectations are worse. This is embodied, in part, each year around Valentine’s Day with the release of a cinematic rendition of one of Nicholas Sparks’s romantic drama novels. Right in time to go on a first date or renew vows (etc.), the studios trot out a film that will create a totally unrealistic idea of what the male animal is and what the world can be when just one loves a woman enough. (I am not at all endorsing this view or suggesting men are at all better, though given that they seem to control both sides of the conversation – casting in Safe Haven is proof positive of that! – they certainly are in a vastly better position to get their expectations in relationships met.)

This year, the Nicholas Sparks novel-based tripe is Safe Haven. Having just returned from a screening of Safe Haven, this year women who buy into the mythos of the romance novel will once again be throwing down their dollars to fill the pockets of a man (two, actually, as director Lasse Halstrom fits the bill quite readily for being a man!) who continues to raise the expectations of what real-world romance might be, while still doing everything he can to break the hearts of his audience by throwing in an appropriately grim tragedy (or two). While Safe Haven might initially seem to upset the standard formula of the Nicholas Sparks story, it contains all of the important elements: a heterosexual relationship initially reluctantly entered into with an element of chance (or in this case, past) that causes an emotional conflict and sets up the potential for the devastation of the relationship, though the two seem emotionally destined for one another regardless. There’s the usual sidekick and, as seems to fit the mold with all his works where the characters are older, kids and everything is exceedingly white. It is, after all, North Carolina (the well-to-do beach-adjacent part).

In this go-around, Katie Feldman flees to Southport, North Carolina, a small town that seems as good enough as any for her to disappear into. While she makes a passing effort to avoid people, her new neighbor Jo insists on befriending her and Katie finds herself attracted to the widower, Alex Wheatley. Soon, Katie is visiting Alex and his shop and befriending his children and forgetting about the reason she fled the big city in the first place. But, as Katie and Alex’s romance grows, Katie’s stability is threatened when her past comes back to haunt her.

I am a big fan of films that explore consequences and, to be fair, Safe Haven does that. While some might say that Safe Haven is a cheap, sappy retread of Sleeping With The Enemy, it is refreshing to see in a Nicholas Sparks movie that: 1. The first love experience is not always the great love story, 2. Running away is seldom a viable option to escape one’s problems. Katie’s supposed big secret hardly is one and she is, in many ways, the typical Sparksian damsel in distress who may be saved (or enjoy the time she has left) by the great love in her life who happens to be the next eligible man she sees at the place she ends up.

Sparks may have a winning formula for the book, which I have admittedly never read, but the screen adaptation by Leslie Bohem, Dana Stevens and Hallstrom is far less inspiring to watch. Defying none of the conventions of Sparks’s formula or the Hollywood ideal (Cobie Smulders, Julianne Hough, and Josh Duhamel are definition of “Hollywood beautiful” and it is clear that Noah Lomax and Mimi Kirkland were cast entirely for their “cute factor”), Safe Haven is only surprising to those who have not seen either a “run from the abusive spouse” story or previous Nicholas Sparks movie.

As for the acting, for two exceedingly good-looking people, Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough have no real on-screen chemistry. Duhamel seems to play well off his child co-stars, but is reserved and lacks zest opposite Hough. Cobie Smulders steals virtually every scene she is in as the spunky best friend.

Her performance, though, is not enough to redeem Safe Haven or make it worth watching. Besides, chances are, you’ve seen it all before already.

For other films with Josh Duhamel, please check out my reviews of:
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
When In Rome
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Transformers

2/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Predictability, Unsteamy Sex Scene, And Stiff Acting Hamper Dear John.

The Good: Decent casting, Richard Jenkins’ performance
The Bad: Absolutely predictable, Failure of actors to infuse the weight of years, Lack of spark
The Basics: Despite a great performance from Richard Jenkins, Dear John is slow, not terribly romantic and completely predictable.


Earlier this year, I dragged my wife to a screening and for a while afterward, things were pretty rocky for us. My wife absolutely hates romance movies, while I am generally more indifferent to them. Our reasons are the same; they tend to be predictable, formulaic and have little variance within the genre. She hates how almost every one involves a guy going for a skinny blonde at all costs. So, taking her to see Dear John, I’m not sure what she thought she was getting into, but for weeks after, she seems pretty cheesed with me.

That said, Dear John is one of the latest cinematic adaptations of a book by Nicholas Sparks. Dear John follows in the tradition of Sparks’ other books made cinematic romances, The Notebook and Nights In Rodanthe. Sadly, though, Dear John offers the viewer little new from the mind of Nicholas Sparks and the film starts with an utterly formulaic beginning, develops into a slow middle and finishes with a completely unconvincing final act. And, because of my principles with not ruining movies for potential viewers (even the bad ones), I will be unable to go into the worst portions of the film as they would reveal far too much about the film’s end. That said, this is a pure review of Dear John the movie; I have not read the book upon which it was based.

John Tyree is an Army Special Forces soldier who is on leave from Germany in early 2001 when he is looking out at the ocean. When Savannah Curtis and her friends come out onto the same pier, her purse gets knocked into the ocean and John jumps in after it. Following her home for a beer, John and Savannah begin a conversation and they spend virtually all of their time together for John’s two weeks of leave. Savannah and John go out to dinner and soon, John introduces her to his (probably) autistic, coin-collecting father. After singing him a song, it’s love between Savannah and John and when the two weeks are up, they promise to write one another and John promises to return in a year.

Unfortunately for their young love, the September 11, 2001 attacks come and, despite a visit back to the U.S. where he gets to see Savannah and make love with her, John goes with his unit and reenlists for another tour of duty. While in Afghanistan, though, the letters stop and John, hurt, puts more distance between him and Savannah.

One supposes it was inevitable; the love story where the September 11, 2001 attacks actually force the main conflict of the film, but Dear John does it in the most mundane of ways. John loses serious interest as a protagonist when he blindly re-ups with his unit. No, apparently, even the love of a skinny blonde chick isn't enough to save men from the peer pressure of the military. If that came out as snarky, it is; men in Dear John are generally the stereotypical men. John is tough, violent at a moment's notice and does not prioritize love over his sense of duty (he also has very little in the way of a neck, which is difficult to watch for almost two hours). His father is emotionally inaccessible and raised him alone, but John has little patience for his condition and actually takes offense when Savannah suggests he might be autistic. Of course, women (or rather, woman) fare equally poorly in Dear John. Savannah is musical, idealistic, passionate and poor with money (that comes up in the final portion of the movie, so I won't elaborate, but it does have to do with following her dream).

But even more ridiculous is the way women at the screening actually seemed to love the movie. Savannah, who decides after spending time with Mr. Tyree that she might want to become a Special Education teacher, insinuates that Mr. Tyree could be autistic (a diagnosis she acknowledges is not professional, but based upon living next to and working with an autistic neighbor for many years). At that point, John leaps on her with verbal anger and she completely backtracks. He undermines her confidence and sense of judgment and the women swoon. No wonder relations between men and women are so screwed up!

The character arcs are generally predictable, but they tend to service the plot, which is a very formulaic: characters meet, fall in love, have a serious obstacle, resolve the challenge(s) story. The only moment of surprise comes in who Savannah finds herself leaving John for while he is deployed in the war zone. Given that the final letter (for most of the movie) comes surprisingly early in the film, this is not a spoiler; most of the movie belabors the consequences after a six year jump while the protagonists are apart.

Therein lies the biggest problem with Dear John as well. The acting does not carry the weight of those six years realistically. Savannah and John were together for two weeks and wrote to one another for about a year. But after six years apart, with all Savannah has struggled with, Amanda Seyfried fails to convince us of the reality of her character's struggles. Despite being married, in love and struggling with someone else, the moment she sees John, it’s pretty much game over. Similarly, Channing Tatum, who plays John, fails to make it realistic that he would want to reconnect with Savannah. After all, years and years of having sex with hookers, (one would assume) should have dampened his memories of two weeks with a skinny blonde who scorned him. Not in Dear John.

That said, Richard Jenkins gives an amazing performance as Mr. Tyree. He plays the autistic father perfectly awkwardly with a brilliant sense of body language and his is the performance to watch. . .

. . . if you have to watch the movie anyway. Dear John is predictable, mistakes control for romance and the lone sex scene is filmed so conservatively as to gut any sense of passion from it. This is easy to pass by.

For other romance movies, please visit my reviews of:
Valentine's Day
Couples Retreat
Going The Distance

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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