Safe Haven: A truly delightful surprise

Safe Haven (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang

Films made from Nicholas Sparks novels tend to follow a predictable — and quite irritating — pattern.

Could anything be more cute and cuddly? Having finally learn to trust the joy of getting
to know new people, Katie (Julianne Hough, center left) finds herself falling in love with
Alex (Josh Duhamel) and his two children, Josh (Noah Lomax) and Lexie (Mimi Kirkland).
Alas, Katie's past threatens to catch up with her, a development that could mean ... ah,
but you'll have to discover that for yourself.

We meet two or more engaging characters in the first act, often but not always young people, at least one of whom carries a Heavy Burden. A relationship develops in the second act, often built on a foundation of Valentine’s Day-perfect dialogue that overcomes initial shyness or mutual wariness. Written correspondence often (always?) plays a key role.

We get to know and like this couple, and feel they deserve happiness. Then whoosh, fresh tragedy strikes — sometimes unbelievably contrived (remember what happens to Richard Gere, at the end of Nights in Rodanthe?) — that leads to a bleak and shattering epilogue. But that’s okay, y’know, because those left behind are grateful for the experience, having grown into better human beings.

Lather, rinse and repeat.

Message in a Bottle was the first Sparks novel to hit the big screen, back in 1999; true to form, it concludes on a grim note. Things improved with The Notebook, due both to that novel’s structure and the 2004 film’s sensational cast. But since then, we’ve slogged through a series of soggy, manipulative and increasingly unsatisfying tear-jerkers, often selected as vehicles for up-and-coming young stars: Dear John (Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried), The Last Song (Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth) and The Lucky One (Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling).

Great stuff for folks who enjoy having their emotions yanked about, I suppose, but far too much been there, endured that for the rest of us.

No surprise, then, that I greeted the impending arrival of Safe Haven with very little enthusiasm.

Which simply goes to show the folly of assumptions. The thoroughly enjoyable Safe Haven is by no means typical of Sparks’ overworked formula; indeed, if I hadn’t known of his involvement going in, I’d have assumed that some other writer had concocted the tale. (Until the epilogue, anyway, at which point we smile, nod and say Ah, yes, there’s the Nicholas Sparks touch. But that’s okay in this case.)

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen: Quite a catch!

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for mild sexual content, brief violence and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.30.12


The British film industry’s gift for gentle whimsy is as inherently cultural as French cinema’s way with erotic comedies: in both cases utterly captivating, and absolutely impossible to reproduce on our shores (although, goodness knows, plenty of people have tried).

When Britain's sporting anglers pitch a headline-making fit over the notion of
shipping 50,000 wild salmon to a foreign country, Fred (Ewan McGregor) and
Harriet (Emily Blunt) wonder whether farm-raised substitutes could serve the
same purpose. The problem, Fred fears, is that such commercially bred fish
might not possess the necessary spawning instinct.

Our British cousins have a knack for making fun of themselves in a way that’s both stylish and just barbed enough to demonstrate a level of sophisticated method to the madness. By comparison, American filmmakers inevitably seem crass and adolescent. The Brits give us Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love, Actually; we give them The Hangover and — soon — The Three Stooges.

Hmmm.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a charmer very much in the vein of Four Weddings, Notting Hill, The Closer You Get, Pirate Radio and numerous other examples that leap to mind. Equal parts romantic comedy, environmental fantasy, faith-based parable and shrewd political commentary, scripter Simon Beaufoy’s handling of Paul Torday’s novel — which I absolutely must read — is brought to the screen with unerring precision by director Lasse Hallström.

Hallström, you will recall, is the sharp-eyed observer of human nature who burst on the scene back in 1985, with My Life As a Dog, made in his native Sweden. He followed that hit with What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat, The Shipping News and the under-appreciated An Unfinished Life, among others. You’ll note a common theme of misfit characters existing just slightly outside mainstream society, often trying to make their way in a world — or among customs — they’re simply not equipped to understand.

That’s certainly the case with Dr. Alfred “Fred” Jones (Ewan McGregor), an exacting fisheries expert happily ensconced within his own little world, deep in the far-flung bowels of an obscure branch of the British government. You just know that all the pens in his desk drawer face in the same direction, and that’s true ... but he also keeps a collapsible fly rod at hand, which he uses each morning to hurl an inked casting weight, dart-like, toward a picture of his stuffy boss (Conleth Hill). Black smudges attest to frequent bull’s-eyes.

Fred’s comfortable, well-constructed world is interrupted one day by an e-mail from Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt), acting as a representative for the enormously wealthy Yemeni Sheikh Muhammed (Amr Waked). The sheikh maintains a massive sporting estate in Scotland, specifically so he can indulge his passion for salmon fishing. But that isn’t enough: He wants to work an environmental miracle in his home country, bringing water to the inhospitable desert and jump-starting an agricultural Renaissance, hopefully to promote peace and spiritual reflection in a land ravaged by conflict.

And, along the way, introducing salmon for his own pleasure.

Would “Dr. Alfred” be willing to act as a consultant?