Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
CBS Films | Release Date: March 9, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
58
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
15
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
NPRElla TaylorMar 9, 2012
The crisply sweet banter and the halting intimacy that grows between two shy people with a common goal more than makes up for a wildly implausible plot. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazinePete HammondMar 7, 2012
A smart, winning and comic, if at times bittersweet, treat. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMar 23, 2012
Isn't as memorable or provocative as it might have been. But it's an engaging love story that should appeal to moviegoers with a flair for the offbeat. Read full review
75
USA TodayScott BowlesMar 15, 2012
The side story about Muslim extremists is a little ham-handed for a film that otherwise exercises such restraint. Read full review
75
New York PostLou LumenickMar 9, 2012
These are characters with whom it's a pleasure to spend a couple of hours. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick GroenMar 8, 2012
As the title more than hints, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is all about a leap of faith, and faith is exactly what this picture requires of us. Make the leap, and you'll be delighted by a movie that's sugary goodness, a guilty pleasure. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleAmy BiancolliMar 8, 2012
The film's emotional complexities don't allow for much of the canned sentiment that normally gets dished out in romantic dramas; what emerges instead, over several reels, is endearingly tender and complicated. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaMar 8, 2012
If all this sounds like too much whimsy to bear, be forwarned. There is whimsy everywhere. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversMar 8, 2012
This is a rich subject for satire and sticking it to political bureaucracy. Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (127 Hours) has mined Paul Torday's book for delicious nuggets about Western capitalism at war with Muslim culture. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanMar 7, 2012
You can have a reasonably nice time at Salmon Fishing in the Yemen if you accept that it's the tidiest movie imaginable to ever say that falling in love is like swimming upstream. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliMar 6, 2012
It's not a stretch to say the movie works in large part because of the charm and sparkle of the three leads: Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, and Kristin Scott Thomas. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 22, 2012
Far-fetched? Yes. A little sugary? Also yes, especially if Thomas were removed from the equation. Happily, she is not, and that, combined with the performances of McGregor, Blunt and Waked, makes Salmon Fishing in the Yemen a charming little movie. Read full review
70
MovielineMichelle OrangeMar 8, 2012
When the recessive style works with the characters and the kooky international-incident story, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen has an absorbing, old-fashioned sweetness. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyMar 4, 2012
The film has a grand cast, with Emily Blunt, Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas and Amr Waked at the center of this very clever tale of modern eco-issues intertwined with old-style political intrigues and New Age romance. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesMar 28, 2012
After a sparky first half greatly aided by Kristin Scott Thomas' devilish turn as an unsentimental press secretary, Salmon Fishing grows soggier. It's such a pretty, witty gloss of a picture, it hardly knows what to do with real-world terror, hence the Snidely Whiplash-like limning of Muslim extremists. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie OgleMar 30, 2012
Not a bad movie - everybody wants dreams to come true - but its platitudes sound awfully hollow sometimes. Read full review
63
Washington PostAnn HornadayMar 8, 2012
A surprisingly lush, endearing little film, in which a swelling sense of romanticism thoroughly banishes even the most far-fetched improbabilities. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsMar 8, 2012
The film's occasional toe-dips into real-world politics, sectarian conflict and the horrors of war are demure and unruffling. What's missing is a point of view beyond Hallstrom's interest in making his actors look as attractive as possible. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMar 7, 2012
This perhaps sounds like a hilarious movie. So it could be, in the hands of the masters of classic British comedy. Unfortunately, the director is the Swede Lasse ("Chocolat"), who sees it as a heart-warming romance and doesn't take advantage of the rich eccentricity in the story. Read full review
60
Total FilmNeil SmithApr 19, 2012
Tamer than the book and not as funny, this is Salmon filleted. But McGregor and Blunt make fetching lovebirds, while Kristin Scott Thomas is off the scale in a rare comic outing. Read full review
60
EmpireAnna SmithApr 16, 2012
As awkward as McGregor's geeky hero and almost as confused as the titular plan, Salmon Fishing is still very likable if you're prepared to take the bait. And it might even be Scott Thomas' funniest turn since "Four Weddings And A Funeral." Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottMar 30, 2012
It's an uplifting, even enchanting, smile-inducer. Read full review
60
The New York TimesStephen HoldenMar 8, 2012
Unlike those in the book, who speak through e-mails, diaries, letters and interviews, the characters here leave the impression of giving harmless nibbles instead of flesh wounds. Defanged and pushed into the background, the satire vanishes, and you are left with an agreeable romantic comedy. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn LevyMar 4, 2012
Alas, none of it, save Kristin Scott Thomas giving a peach of a performance as a political operative, smacks of real life or vitality. Even when it evinces spasms of life, this film is, more or less, a dead fish. Read full review
50
TimeMary PolsMar 12, 2012
It's only when it takes an unfortunate wrong turn from playful wit into the dramatic and sentimental - Hallström's speciality - that the movie starts to unravel. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerMar 9, 2012
It's a soggy farce that not even its top-notch cast can rescue – though not for want of trying. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeWesley MorrisMar 8, 2012
It's all been called Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, just like Paul Torday's 2007 novel, and, except for some despicable behavior in the later going, it couldn't be more harmless. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsMar 7, 2012
In spite of a promising start, an unconventional setup, attractive photography, and game lead performances from Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt, Salmon Fishing quickly turns into exactly the sort of wet cardboard box of a movie its title suggests. Read full review
50
Village VoiceMark HolcombMar 6, 2012
Mostly sacrifices the political satire and epistolary structure of Paul Torday's source novel in favor of cute, if strained, rom-com shenanigans. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeMar 4, 2012
The movie has a hard time wrapping up its love story without feeling forced, however game the cast. Viewers won't be able to say they weren't given what they came for, but they might feel unsatisfied all the same. Read full review
50
VarietyPeter DebrugeMar 4, 2012
Like one of those kitchen machines that can turn nearly any ingredient into ice cream, Lasse Hallstrom has sweetened the satire right out of Paul Torday's side-splitting political sendup Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Read full review
40
The GuardianPeter BradshawApr 19, 2012
It feels as if you've seen it many times before. Bill Nighy isn't in it, for example, and yet afterwards I had an intense memory of Bill Nighy being in it, the way amputees can feel their toes itching. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierMar 9, 2012
The cast gives it all a good go, and pip-pip and all that for noticeable intelligence and a bit of the old British satire. Yet Salmon Fishing takes patience and rewards with no bite. Read full review
40
Time OutDavid FearMar 6, 2012
Only Kristin Scott Thomas channeling "In the Loop's" Malcolm Tucker offers a spark; the rest is simply hokum designed to land overly sentimental suckers hook, line and sinker. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineBill WeberMar 9, 2012
The ill use made of the stars' charms in this initially strained, then egregiously dopey mushfest can likely be credited to market-tested notions of modern popular romance. Read full review
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