Salmon Fishing in Yemen, starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt, actually looks cuter than the title suggests: It’s a whimsical (cringe) story about a fisheries expert who’s brought to Yemen to, yes, bring salmon fishing to the country, but there’s also a political satire at play (he’s there as part of a feel-good wag-the-dog program). Plus romance! The movie’s based on Paul Torday’s 2007 novel and got pretty decent buzz out of Toronto earlier this year.
The possible merits of the film aside, this trailer seems to have distilled the soundtracks from every movie trailer into one perfected template of teaser music. We start plucky and bouncy — how fun and bright — and then we introduce the B-movement as things pick up slightly. Here’s the story! that part says. And then, gung, crash, change of tune: Here’s the heart, set against a driving pop riff, with stronger percussion, and now it’s time for the soaring anthem part, which tells us that this is the core emotional arc of the film. Ta-da! Now you too can use this template. (For comparison’s sake, here’s the Moneyball trailer, which follows an identical formula.)