Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (**3/4)

Say what you will, you’ll not likely find a better quasi-romantic comedy premised on a sheik’s plan to introduce fly-fishing to the desert, and a British government’s support of that plan as a way to distract folks from bad news about the Middle East. The important thing, though, is that it provides the premise for Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt), who works for the sheik and Dr. Fred Jones (Ewan McGregor), a fisheries scientist who thinks the whole plan is daft, to get together in an exotic setting. The other thing is that both of these characters, who refer to each other by last name, are attached (to a boyfriend off to fight in Afghanistan in one case, and to a wife on a business trip in the other). However, these existing relationships are too underdeveloped to be other than plot elements.

It’s only a “quasi” romantic comedy because it’s not that romantic (excepting, mostly, Harriet’s early tryst with her boyfriend), and it’s only sometimes aiming for laughs, and light ones at that. Directed by Lasse Hallström, who’s helmed such light fare as Chocolat and Casanova, it’s mostly content to bring us pleasant characters in pleasant settings acting, mostly, very pleasant, with pleasant quirks. (Mostly, he’s slightly uptight.) Harriet once acts, understandably, unpleasant, then apologizes for it. I found the movie perfectly…pleasant without finding any outstanding qualities to it

Presumably no one involved with the production of this movie knew about the Arab Spring that would topple the government of Yemen, or anything much about the country except that there were sheiks there, and desert, and highlands, which is all that’s necessary for this movie. The script is by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire), who adapted a satirical novel by Paul Torday. This should have provided resources for something with a little more edge, or at least a good fish-out-of-water story, pardon the pun, but the satirical edge is largely absent except in the character played by Kristin Scott Thomas, the PR rep for the prime minister. Possibly I am downgrading the movie slightly so as to overcompensate for the effect of Blunt force on me. (To me, the actress makes everything she’s in just a little classier.) Probably if the movie sounds charming you will find it so.

IMDb link

viewed 2/23/2012 7:30 pm at Ritz Bourse [PFS screening] and reviewed 2/23/2012

Ponyo (***1/4)

When celebrated Japanese animated filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle) teams up with the Disney people and makes a movie that’s (loosely) based on Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid,” one might start to wonder if he’s gone all mainstream. But no, Disney’s just the US distributor, and despite appealing to a younger audience than other Miyazaki films, and having English dubbing, this retains much of the appealing strangeness for which he’s known.

Ponyo is a fish who looks like a little white girl with a tail, but the boy who finds her is a Japanese boy living with his mother in a seaside town. Even with dubbing by American bigshots like Tina Fey (as the mother), Matt Damon, Lily Tomlin, and Liam Neeson, the movie retains a distinct Japanese flavor, as well as a style of animation, less realistic and nearly psychedelic at times, that is different from both Disney and Pixar, the big Hollywood animation studios. Even the way the boy’s mom drives recklessly is notable, as well as quite funny. (Even funnier is watching Ponyo sort of run on top of the giant wave that’s chasing the car. Honestly, the story of magic spells and the little fish-girl who wants to live on the land is borderng on the trite, not an adjective I’d associate with Miyazaki. (The other part of the story is about how the world might end if Ponyo doesn’t return to the sea like her dad wants.) But the kids will go for it, and there’s just enough quirky bits and humor that many adults will happily go along for the ride.

IMDB link

viewed 8/10/09 (screening at Ritz East) and reviewed 8/15/09