“Hector and the Search for Happiness” is an uplifting, life-affirming travel comedy in a similar vein to Ben Stiller’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” from last year. Both revolve around men who live tidy but unsatisfying lives and want a little more excitement.
In “Hector,” Hector (Simon Pegg) is a dissatisfied psychiatrist who feels like he doesn’t have enough life experience to give his clients any real advice on how to be happy, so he embarks on a global journey to find out the meaning of happiness.
“Hector” is a positive movie, something that’s scarce in the current cinema landscape. It may get you in the mood to travel but for all its globe-trotting, it’s not all that enlightening and it builds to a fairly obvious and simple outcome. In the long run, “Hector,” like “Mitty,” feels outdated and stale, instead of original and lively.
A problem “Hector” (directed by Peter Chelsom and based on the book by Francois Lelord) faces early on is that Hector’s life — as it is before he goes on his journey — doesn’t seem all that bad. He makes good money, he has time for such hobbies as flying remote-control airplanes and he has a loving, supportive girlfriend Clara (Rosamund Pike). And, yet, he still complains about being unhappy.
So when he goes gallivanting off to China, Africa and, finally, Los Angeles — to meet up with an old flame, played by Toni Collette — it feels like a selfish act. Also, tonally, the film doesn’t seem to know what it wants to do. Sometimes, it plays like a wacky travel comedy, while, at other times, it plays like a sappy, heavy-handed light drama about self-discovery. The scenes featuring Hector interviewing various people along his journey, asking them to define happiness, begin to feel preachy, tedious and repetitive.
Not only that, the movie inserts peculiar bursts of intense drama, as when Hector is taken hostage by rebels in Africa. This appears to be the only serious conflict in the entire movie, and yet, Chelsom treats it like it’s no big deal — through a stroke of luck, Hector is released and he continues traveling.
What’s most frustrating about the movie is that, for all the traveling Hector does and all he learns about happiness, it ends on a rather trite and underwhelming note.
Fortunately, the movie has Pegg, who’s in top form as always. The 44-year-old English actor plays the benevolent, “head in the clouds” kind of guy with ease, and his Hector is certainly a more engaging protagonist than Stiller’s mopey, timid Walter in “Mitty.” Pegg is the only thing that gives “Hector” any kind of life: Without him it would be nearly unwatchable.