Wes's Grade: C
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| Simon Pegg |
If the search for true happiness were this boring, I'd rather be unhappy. "Hector's and the Search for Happiness" is a mildly enjoyable but unsatisfying adventure that resembles those films with people going on trips to find themselves. Hector (Simon Pegg) is a quirky psychiatrist who has become increasingly tired of his humdrum life. Hector decides to break out of his deluded and routine driven life. Armed with buckets of courage and child-like curiosity, he embarks on a global quest in hopes of uncovering the elusive secret formula for true happiness. Directed and written by Peter Chesholm and based on the novel by Francois Lelord, the unfulfilling, uneven "Hector and the Search for Happiness" is filled with quirky, fun moments and platitudes that don't often make sense with the story, not to mention it seems to be required to go off to find happiness instead of looking for it right in front of you. The always-amusing, always-entertaining Pegg from "Star Trek" and those far funnier zombie films with Nick Frost (too bad he doesn't appear here) grounds the film well, but "Hector" feels awfully similar to Ben Stiller's "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," a film that flopped last winter and may happen to this. Jean Reno, Toni Collette, Stellan Skarsgard and Oscar-winner Christopher Plummer all appear in smallish roles that don't advance the film much, though Collette has one nice, touching monologue in the final act, and the lovely Rosamund Pike is given little to do as well. I enjoyed parts of the unsatisfying and empty "Hector and the Search for Happiness" and I always like seeing Pegg, but you won't be truly happy after you leave the movie.
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