Aubrey Malone
"He who searches for God," they say, "has already found him." Or in the words of Christopher Plummer from this whimsical movie: "The pursuit of happiness isn't as important as the happiness of pursuit."
Hector (Simon Pegg) is a London psychiatrist. Like T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, he has his life measured out in coffee spoons. He's good at his job but feels there's something missing in it for him. The same is true of his relationship with his longterm partner Clara (Rosamund Pike). She tends to mother – or rather smother – him with attention.
After a breakdown of sorts which sees him turn on one of his patients, he decides to take a trip around the world to 'find himself'. His first pit-stop is China where an encounter with a call girl opens his eyes to the way the other half live – if not love.
This is mild in comparison with what he goes through on a subsequent stop in Africa. Here the glitz and glamour of China (funded in part by a millionaire he strikes up with) is replaced by the life-threatening world of drugs.
The third part of his picaresque odyssey brings him to L.A. where he arranges to meet both an old flame (the ubiquitous Toni Collette) and a trendy lecturer (Plummer) whose book Side Effects May Include Happiness (what a great title) has been flying off the shelves.
Does Hector succeed in his quest? I won't spoil your surprise. Suffice to say that the film, though consistently engaging, is rather pat in its conclusions. I found the last quarter in particular to be overly prescriptive and analytic. It solidifies oneís view of the simplistic Freudianism at its core, the bumper sticker 'wisdom' telegraphed to us in so many episodic 'lessons.'
Hector's re-evaluation of his relationship with Clara at the end is similarly simplistic, though it does make one aware, to quote Eliot again, that many journeys end where they began, in a journey back to the self.
My father used to say, "Happiness is a thing called Joe." Maybe this should also have been mentioned in Plummer's book. The physician may heal himself finally but is the solution to his problem not staring him in the face from Day One?
In which case he could have saved himself a lot of plane fares – and angst.
