Hector and the Search for Happiness

A would-be feel-good movie, Peter Chelsom's slick but sappy adaptation of the 2002 novel by François Lelord follows one man's globetrotting efforts to find the secret to inner contentment. Simon Pegg stars as Hector—a London psychiatrist with a beautiful girlfriend (Rosamund Pike)—whose rigidly ordered, predictable life has left him miserable. So he decides to go off on a journey of self-discovery that takes him first to Shanghai, where a rich, dour businessman introduces him to the city's fleshpots, and he falls for a beauty who turns out to be a call girl (which teaches him that sometimes it's best not to know the whole story). Hector then visits a wise Tibetan monk and an old college buddy who runs a clinic in Africa to learn about the joys of solitude, contemplation, and service to one's fellow man. Then he's off to L.A. to see both his old college flame, now a happily-married wife and mother, and a renowned professor who has invented a machine that can disclose the range of emotions within the human brain. Occasional eruptions of cutesy animation underscore the banalities that Hector learns along the way. Despite the presence of a supporting cast that includes Christopher Plummer, Toni Collette, Jean Reno, and Stellan Skarsgård, this is a cinematic misfire. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)