Chicago – “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” is a romantic comedy so lightweight that it threatens to float off into the ether. It has perhaps the least gripping title since Ingmar Bergman’s “Sawdust and Tinsel,” which is strange since the rest of the production reeks of commercial calculation. Yet the film is based on Paul Torday’s book of the same name, so the studio must have considered the title marketable.

There’s perhaps no film more difficult to make than a good crowd-pleaser. It’s easy to manufacture phony uplift. The trick is for the director to guide an audience’s emotions in a way where they don’t feel manipulated. That’s where the element of surprise comes into play. If the audience is perched on the edge of their seats, while delighting in the character’s increasingly loony plight, they will likely embrace whatever the script has in store for them.