Hector and the Search for Happiness

Dir: Peter Chelsom

2014

**

It doesn't really matter who you are, how wealthy you are or how hard you work, after a while of doing the same thing over a long period of time, you will want to get away, do something different and pause for thought. It's completely natural. However, it is extremely hard to sympathize, and indeed, even understand the reasons why Hector, a successful and wealthy psychiatrist who is well respected, has a beautiful home in one of the most desirable places on the planet and a loving relationship with a beautiful women, would feel the need to go to the other side of the planet to work out what happy is. Rich and successful people can feel unfulfilled and indeed the poorest of people can be among the happiest in the world, this is understood, it is just that in Francois Lelord's book and Peter Chelsom's film, Hector is a poor vehicle in which to deliver this message. The book is full of advice such as 'Take more holidays in the sun", which is good advice but will make those of us who can't afford regular trips abroad, quite the opposite of happy. This is essentially the films problem. Simon Pegg's Hector is a messy character, completely juxtaposed and never believable. If you don't like Simon Pegg (and I do) you are essentially screwed. Hector's journey is the most convoluted and contrived piece of writing I've seen for a long time as he is kidnapped and beaten one minute and laughing and joking the next. He's intelligent but naive, clumsy but regimental, organised and chaotic, you could argue that this is art imitating life but it really isn't, it's cheap script-writing. The ideology sounds nice but it is never realistic, it is frustratingly shallow and incredibly patronizing. Still, it looks like Simon Pegg had a fun time and we all like Simon Pegg so that's okay. Cheating doesn't count if there's no penetration after all. It's so over the top and ridiculous it should have been a musical, maybe with slightly less schmaltz, a little bit more thinking and a lot more of the fantasy element that runs through the story they could have come up with something special, although that film has already been made, twice in fact, once in 1947 and then again in 2013. It was called The Secret Life of Walter Mitty both times.