Hector and the Search for Happiness

I suspect that I like Peter Chelsom’s Hector and the Search for Happiness more than I should. I certainly like it more than the majority of the critics do. Partly, this has to do with the fact that I like Peter Chelsom, a filmmaker who should have had a better career than he has — and it’s certainly a relief to see him recovering from the nadir of Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009). And much as I like some of his U.S. work — Serendipity (2001), Shall We Dance (2004) — it’s a pleasure to see him back in British cinema, even if in a globe-trotting form. Even so, I have to admit that Hector is longer than it needs to be — most of the excess is in the first half, making it a slow starter. It is also shamelessly sentimental, though I don’t immediately fault it for that. Plus, the tone is a little uneven. At first, I faulted it for its tendency to use too many immediately recognizable actors in small roles, but then I saw Kill the Messenger immediately afterwards and realized it worked pretty well in Hector. What I think I most like about the film is that it’s sweet without being cloying, though it sometimes flirts dangerously with that possibility. At the same time, if you’re allergic to whimsy, this is best avoided.

Simon Pegg stars as Hector, a buttoned-down psychiatrist with a regimented practice and an equally regimented life. He has a comfortable existence and an attractive, pleasant girlfriend, Clara (Rosamund Pike — about as far from Gone Girl as possible). But something is wrong beneath the surface, which finally breaks through when he blows up at one of his regular patients. It is this — and his realization that he can’t really help his patients because he has no clue what makes people happy — that sends him on the search of the title, something that doesn’t exactly thrill Clara. The problem with the search — both as a practical journey and from the standpoint of drama — is that it has no structure to speak of. He doesn’t know how or where to start, and, as a result, neither does the film. His choice of going to China first seems grounded in nothing, and his adventures there are the film’s least successful, despite a pleasant turn from Stellan Skarsgård as a rich businessman who takes an inexplicable liking to Hector.

There’s more focus to his other journeys as he asks holy men, a druglord, an old friend, a bargain-basement African gangster, a village woman, an old girlfriend, etc., for definitions of happiness. Of course, by the film’s very nature, all of these encounters are only sketched in. But some of the sketches are very worth encountering, even if few of them are particularly revelatory. You’re not likely to learn anything you don’t know, but maybe it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of some of them. One sequence involving a dying woman (Chantel Herman) on a plane where both his medical and psychiatric skills are actually put to worthwhile use is particularly effective. In fact, this is probably the film’s single best scene. In itself, that poses a problem since it makes what follows — his reunion with his old girlfriend (Toni Collette) — taste like wax fruit for a while. Fortunately, this is overcome — mostly by phone calls from Clara — fairly quickly. And while the business with Christopher Plummer as a scientist measuring emotions via brainwaves is pretty corny, it works in the context of the film.

Hector and the Search for Happiness is not a great movie by any means. It’s certainly not a Ten Best contender or even in that ballpark. But it is an ultimately enjoyable, touching moviegoing experience that’s worth your while. Oh, it’s on the simplistic side, but it’s so good-natured and pleasant that I don’t feel like complaining. Rated R for language and some brief nudity.