What a profoundly weird movie this is. On the surface of it, Hector and the Search for Happiness seems as though it should be a lark, a feel-good movie about a psychiatrist (a violently earnest Simon Pegg) who goes in search of happiness by asking people what makes them happy. But in practice, Hector gets pretty dark, with violence, cussing, and just a skosh of torture. Edge isn't a bad thing in comedy, of course, but the darkness Hector addresses only adds to the film's offhanded, bipolar energy.
When Hector leaves his perfect bougie London life (and his perfect bougie girlfriend, played by the perfectly perfect Rosamund Pike) behind, he becomes a tourist in the worlds of drug trafficking and economic and sexual exploitation as he travels to China, some nameless African nation, and Los Angeles in search of meaning. He writes his bumper-sticker platitudes of happiness (example: "Listening is loving") in a journal and then heads off without looking over his shoulder, leaving the eggy scent of casual racism and thoughtless colonialism in his wake.
But you can't entirely write off Hector, in large part because of its dynamic, visually inventive energy. Peter Chelsom (previous credits include Hannah Montana: The Movie and the John Cusack stinker Serendipity) brings a restlessness to the film, breaking up Pegg's many soliloquies with jittery animation, adorable special effects, and impressionistic attempts at portraying Hector's interior life. It's not worth the two hours and the 15 bucks, but Hector is at least alive with passionate direction and performances, even if all that passion is in service to an unworthy subject. The world simply doesn't need another movie where a rainbow coalition of global citizensâmonks, poor African villagers, Chinese prostitutesâall come together to share their homespun wisdom in order to convince a wealthy white guy to turn that frown upside down. 
