Faced with the prospect of exams and looming essay deadlines, what better way to spend a Thursday evening than going to the cinema and spending a few hours away from the hustle and bustle of Cambridge and the ever-present conundrum of where to locate a May Ball dress and / or enough money to supply my very unhealthy-looking student loan?

The fact that this involved spending the best part of an evening in the company of Ewan McGregor was too good an opportunity to pass up. McGregor is very different in this film as Dr. Alfred ‘Fred’ Jones, a put-upon civil servant facing marital problems and a possible midlife crisis compared to his usual turns as suave, self-assured characters.

Adapted from the 2006 novel by Paul Torday, the light-hearted comedy tells the story of the aforementioned Fred and his attempt to promote the Yemeni fishing industry, a sector which, according to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, has “considerable potential but is vastly under-exploited”.

He is at first reluctant, but the appearance of a certain Ms. Harriet Chetwode-Talbot (Emily Blunt), a formidable press officer and a Yemeni sheikh soon put paid to his ambitions to live out his days among the backstabbing and bureaucracy of the government’s Agriculture and Fisheries Department.

Thankfully, Kristin Scott-Thomas as Patricia Maxwell, Prime Minister’s quick-thinking press officer, succeeds in convincing her superiors and the British public of the importance of Operation Salmon, adamant that the venture will create a good relationship between the United Kingdom and Yemeni government and that people want ‘Anglo-Arab news about things that don’t explode’.

The chemistry between Blunt and McGregor and the witty, quick-fire exchanges between them were one of the highlights of the film, earning a lot of laughs from the audience as well as the together bringing of Scottish and English ideas to Yemeni culture such as the incongruous appearance of the sheikh’s butlers dressed in kilts.

I was impressed by Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt’s convincing performances, as well as the stunning cinematography. Simon Beaufoy’s strong script has also allowed for the seamless transition of Torday’s best-selling novel to the big screen, justly earning this film its praise and position as one of the most talked-about films of the past year since its début at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival.

After a few scrapes, some soul-searching and an awful lot of salmon-fishing, we find ourselves in the regrettable position of having to bid farewell to the characters and return to the reality of essays and the terrifying challenge of having to find out just how many calories there are in a family-size packet of Jaffa Cakes.