Linux on Film: Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)

A visibly much older Ewan McGregor heads off to Yemen with a lovely but unglamorous Emily Blunt in this BBC film which touches on Middle East conflicts while providing a very mature, adult, and almost asexual romance. McGregor's subtle and restrained performance overrides otherwise unlikely events and a contrived love triangle that occurs midway through the movie. Kristin Scott Thomas exemplifies the best of whimsical but scathing British humor as she makes full use of her brief appearances just as well as she did in Mission: Impossible (1996).

In two scenes in London where McGregor's character works, his desktop (and his bosses') sports a skinned FreeBSD or Linux system (I'd wager a customized Debian distribution). In the blink and you'll miss it scenes, Linux users will notice an Applications folder, Mail launcher, curiously themed icons, and clearly a non-Windows or Mac OSX desktop. The use of Linux in the fisheries office is not unlikely since the U.K. government spearheaded a cost-cutting measure for open source adoption in government agencies.





As a final note, I recommend Salmon Fishing in the Yemen just for the mere fact it has brief references to Indiana Jones. McGregor's character, Fred Jones, is constantly referred to in a perfect British accent as "Dr. Jones" by Emily Blunt in the first 45 minutes of the movie. McGregor also makes a side remark that if they proceeded to Yemen as planned, they might even find the 'Ark of the Covenant'. A Linux cameo, two Indiana Jones references, a timely British film about the Middle East and an affecting romance? Sounds like a good flick for a quiet winter afternoon.