Faith meets fishing in Lasse Hallström's Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Christians are all for their conversation-starting films and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen has oodles of moments to get you talking. Director Lasse Hallström seems unable to make up his mind whether he wants his film to be a rom-com or inspirational drama. What we end up with is a slightly clunky yet endearing and enjoyable blend of the two.

Dr Alfred Jones (Ewan McGregor) is the UK’s leading salmon fishing expert whose passion for his work does not match the feelings he has towards his humdrum, middle-aged, married life outside the office. When he is approached by the elegant Harriet (Emily Blunt) on behalf of a wealthy Yemeni sheikh with a passion for salmon fishing in Scotland, he scoffs at the sheikh’s dream to build a salmon run of his own run back in Yemen. The odds seem to his cynical mind so stacked against success.

Thankfully, the film is much less about salmon fishing and much more about the lives and attitudes of the three very different people who come to work together on this unlikely project.

The sheikh has a vision that he knows is only possible by faith. His dream could easily be written off as self-interested hobbyism; his personal love for fishing is certainly a motivating factor. Yet his bigger vision is to turn arid desert into a fertile green oasis that will provide food and respite to his people for generations to come.

Dr Jones is a man of no faith. He admits he’s not religious and remarks at one point in the film that he can’t think of anyone he knows who even goes to church these days. For him, salmon fishing is about patience and perseverance, knowing that one might have to go out hours a time, even days, before anything is caught, but it takes the sheikh to point out to him that in its own way, even fishing is an act of faith.

When the sheikh proposes a toast to “fish and faith” during their first meeting together, the reluctant Dr Jones raises his glass out of politeness. It is only as the project starts to come together before his eyes, that he starts to understand the connection between faith and turning the seemingly impossible project before him into a reality.

Real life seems to lap continuously into the dream that connects Dr Jones, Harriet and the sheikh. Harriet’s soldier boyfriend of three weeks is missing in action in Afghanistan and the prospect of his death is never far from her mind.

Dr Jones is married to a woman he no longer loves. As the salmon fishing project starts to take off, his marriage seems to be breaking down in equal strides. All the while, Dr Jones' feelings for Harriet continue to grow and, in a more guarded way, hers for him too.

The audience can’t help but wonder what Harriet will do if her boyfriend is found alive, nor asking Dr Jones 'what about your wife?'. In that sense, the rom-com elements of this film are a departure from the gushy unattached girl meets unattached guy formula that we are all familiar with. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen brings the romantic comedy right into the 21st century reality of marital breakdown and ever-changing relationships.

As for the faith that Dr Jones comes to have by the end of the project, it is the sort of faith that reflects the value system of modern Western society - a faith in possibility, a faith in ultimate success, a faith in effort. Although his cynicism may have been peeled back, allowing him to see that faith is as much a part of his life as it is for the devoutly religious sheikh's, it is of course not the same as a faith that believes in the God who makes the impossible possible, such as the sheikh has.

In that sense, the film is a helpful reminder of the challenge facing the church to demonstrate to a skeptical world that if faith in the seemingly impossible is not so misguided, then perhaps, going one step further, faith in the living God isn't either.


Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is out in cinemas on 20 April.