Movie Review: ‘Hector and the Search for Happiness,’ With Simon Pegg

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ben Kenigsberg
A scene from the film starring Simon Pegg. Video Credit By Relativity on
Publish Date September 18, 2014. Image CreditEd Araquel/Relativity
HOLLYWOOD---Fashioned as a sort of fairy tale, “Hector and the Search for Happiness,” based on a novel by the psychiatrist François Lelord, centers on a London therapist who has failed to find satisfaction himself. Hector meets with monks (and Skypes!) in the Himalayas. He assists an old school friend (Barry Atsma) with medical-mission work in Africa, where he also dispenses advice to a drug kingpin (Jean Reno) and — in the film’s glibbest episode of cultural tourism — is kidnapped and held for ransom. Mr. Pegg, normally a live wire, makes an affable hero, but the movie often forces him into blandly earnest mugging. [link]

Hector and the Search for Happiness” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Prostitution; a Frenchwoman struggling to pronounce “happiness.”