'Hector' Balances Humor and Heart

Simon Pegg goes soul-searching around the world in Peter Chelsom’s “Hector and the Search for Happiness.” The result is a film that veers once or twice into mawkishness but is ultimately successful at being what it set out to be—a witty comedy with formidable doses of both humor and heart.

Hector (Pegg) is a man who lives a self-described “satisfactory life”—he has a long-term live-in girlfriend, a set of middle-class daily routines, and a stable psychiatric practice. Thrown into a crisis that is ostensibly career-related, he embarks on a “research” journey to find out what true happiness is. Hector’s adventure takes him to China, Africa, and beyond, where he meets a truly eclectic line-up of characters who each have their own additions to the recipe for happiness. He is treated to paid escort in Shanghai, wired to a machine seemingly inspired by Cerebro from the X-Men, and imprisoned in a warlord’s jail cell before finally returning home.

The events that unfold in between piece together the puzzle of happiness, relayed in a quirky and colorful cinematographic style which alternates between standard photography and a comic strip. The cartoon motif adds an air of otherworldly fantasy to the entire story—a very nice stylistic touch that gives “Hector” a Paulo Coelho feel.

Simon Pegg is so grounded and believable as the confused but curious Hector that one wonders why it took so long for him to make a film like this. Eccentric but relatable, Pegg stabilizes the film as it makes stops throughout the entire dramatic spectrum, from penis jokes to real moments of sensitivity and pathos. Despite being without usual sidekick Nick Frost, with whom he has made his most successful films, Pegg alternates between the straight man and the funny man with ease.

Pegg is also supported by a versatile array of performers filling the roles of characters that Hector meets throughout his journey—Stellan Skarsgard plays a materialistic businessman, Jean Reno plays a volatile drug dealer, and Christopher Plummer is an overenthusiastic university lecturer. Toni Collette and Rosamund Pike also headline competently with Pegg as Hector’s ex-girlfriend and current girlfriend, respectively. These characters range from the very familiar to outright caricatures, but there is a sense that this simplicity is not only acceptable but necessary. After all, regardless of how solid the performances are, each character serves only to guide Hector in his pursuit of happiness.

In a film that centers on a single philosophical question, the success of the movie certainly hinges, at least in part, on how well the film answers the question at hand. In this respect “Hector” does a surprisingly good job. Naturally, there is a degree of vacillation, but at its best, “Hector” ventures into the inspired. During the darkest moment of the film, when Hector is held at the gunpoint of a psychotic warlord, he is forced to confront the fact that he is travelling not to better treat his patients’ needs for happiness but his own. The film’s third act is quite forced at times, but fortunately, the ending is satisfying and true. While Hector left on a journey expecting to be enlightened or transformed, all that he learned and needed to learn was how meaningful his life already was.

“Hector” does not offer a ground-breaking new doctrine for happiness. What it does do, however, is lead us through a worthwhile journey that we’ve gone on many times—and wouldn’t mind going on again. “Hector” is about a man who never dared to live and, in a span of weeks, learns to see all the hues of life that he had been missing—the laughs, the tears, and everything crazy and spectacular in between.

—Contributing writer Steven S.K. Hao can be reached at stevenhao@college.harvard.edu.