Mike McCahill 

Hector and the Search for Happiness review – Simon Pegg stars a smug psychiatrist in mid-life crisis

Hear My Song director Peter Chelsom has mistaken blokish fantasy for happiness in this draggy travelogue, writes Peter Bradshaw
  
  

Simon Pegg and Toni Collette in Hector and the Search for Happiness
Cardiganned stasis … Simon Pegg and Toni Collette in Hector and the Search for Happiness. Photograph: Ed Araquel Photograph: Ed Araquel/PR

A naggingly credulous adaptation of François Lelord's philosophically minded bestseller, with Simon Pegg as a psychiatrist using a round-the-world jolly as a means of jolting himself from cardiganned mid-life stasis. Erstwhile crowdpleaser Peter Chelsom (Hear My Song) still knows how to frame a good gag, but precious few emerge in a draggy travelogue that, astonishingly, feels scarcely more substantial than Eat Pray Love. Scene after scene follows of Hector pleasing himself: turning the head of every woman he encounters, Pegg's smuggery knows no bounds. Chelsom, for his part, has mistaken blokish fantasy for happiness; whatever enlightenment there is here proves far too easily gained. Keep looking, folks.

 

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