Book-turned-film a cliched romcom

GRAEME TUCKETT

BRIGHT SPOT: Ewen McGregor gives an exceptional performance in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

REVIEW: 'Cliche' doesn't even do the phrase justice anymore, but I'll repeat it anyway: good books seldom yield good movies. Popular books, bad books, extended short stories; all of these give themselves up to a decent writer and director like pipis at low tide. But a well-wrought, well put together novel of any real insight or penetration is almost impossible to bring accurately to the screen. You can follow the ''BBC does Dickens' route, and commit to 12 hours of telly, or you can take everything that made the novel unique and unforgettable, and render it into a generic gloop that could be smeared across any number of average movies.

And so, Salmon Fishing in The Yemen, unforgivably clunky and smart-arsed though the title may be, is a terrific wee read, full of ideas, gentle satire, and no small amount of intelligent comment on relations between Europe and the Middle East. But it turns up on screen as not much more than every other Brit romcom you've ever seen in your life, with only some beautiful settings and a better than average cast to commend it.

Not that Ewen McGregor and Emily Blunt's efforts are wasted; they are a couple a exceptional performers, delivering quite believable and very likeable performances even in the most contrived and sugar-laden of set-ups.

So will true-love conquer all? Will Ewen and Emily succeed in raising a population of fish in the middle of the desert? Will ''following your dream'' -  no matter how unlikely or downright delusional it may be - offered up to us by Hollywood as the only possible recipe for happiness? Will Kristin Scott Thomas not so much chew the scenery, as disembowel it and leave it dying on the road? You know the answer to all these questions already.

But it is a shame, again, to contemplate the career of Lasse Hallstrom  from the fabulous My Life as a Dog, and What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, via Chocolat and The Cider House Rules, to The Notebook, and now this. And even more of a shame to see another good book put through the studio blender, with a gallon of corn syrup, served up tepid with all the good stuff strained out of it.

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (M) (107 min)
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Starring Ewen McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas.

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