Hector and the Search for Happiness

Isn’t that always the way? You wait for one movie about a man travelling all over the world to find himself, and then two come along at once. While Hector might have more than a passing resemblance to Ben Stiller’s recent travelogue The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty, it doesn’t strive quite so hard to be as profound, but nor does it seem to know exactly what it is striving for in the first place.

An unhappy psychologist living his life in neutral, Hector (Simon Pegg) realises that he feels the advice he’s giving his patients on how to live better and happier lives rings hollow because he hasn’t lived his own life properly yet, and nor does he fully understand what happiness truly is, or how to achieve it. So he jets off around the world, leaving his girlfriend (Rosamund Pike) to wonder what exactly the future of their relationship is, while he meets a whole host of people, all of whom approach their own happiness differently, and define it by their own wants and needs.

The conveyor belt of interesting characters that Hector crosses paths with – shady business man Stellan Skarsgard, drug kingpin Jean Reno, ex-girlfriend Toni Collette – all bring interesting insights and scenarios, but also bring the movie in entirely different directions, with a more fitting title being Hector And The Search For Tone. Stumbling clumsily from comedy to drama to an almost nightmare-ish thriller, it’s as if writer/director Peter Chelsom (previous cinematic release: Hannah Montana The Movie) doesn’t know what kind of movie he wants to make, so he tries to make them all.

Despite itself, Hector still manages to faintly work, mostly thanks to Pegg’s immediate likability and Pike’s natural charm. Chelsom also injects some lovely visuals into the story, plays around with his own lack of budget (check out Hector travelling across the African skies), and some of the interludes are genuinely affecting, with particularly powerful moments involving a sick lady on a plane or a conversation with Collette about wasting time waiting for something better that both resonate long after the movie has finished.