"Hector and the Search for Happiness"

My guys loved “Hector and the Search for Happiness.” My eldest son had urged me to write a review of it back when it first premiered, but I had some initial resistance since it seemed to be yet another movie coasting on the New Age trend and overused plot devices.  At his insistence, I gave it another look.

Light-hearted novelistic narration (similar to “Stranger than Fiction,”) sets the tone. “Once upon a time there was a young psychiatrist called Hector (Simon Pegg) who had a very satisfactory life. His world was tidy, uncomplicated and he liked it that way.”  My teenage sons laughed during the corresponding montage of Hector’s OCD home life contrasting with his work life as a disconnected, doodling psychiatrist with neurotic and manic patients.

By all rights, Hector should be happy. He has a lovely, charming girlfriend (Rosamund Pike) who loves her Hector for his peculiar quirks. Clara seems content in maintaining his orderly life, while advancing her career. At a work party in her honor, the cracks show through. Her boss jokes that what he likes most about Clara is that she never takes off for maternity leave. When she raises her glass in a toast, “to making a difference,” her boss yells over her, “to making money!”

Back at his office, a psychic patient of Hector’s announces that she can see through his “psychiatrist tricks” and knows that he is just going through the motions. His other patients’ constant whining about trivial concerns finally gets to Hector and he loses it. He realizes that he isn’t helping them get any happier, so he decides to set off on a journey to find the secret to happiness.

His ever-supportive girlfriend gives him permission to “make the most of it.” She sends him off with a notebook with an inscription, “Hector’s search for happiness – a journey. Fill these pages.” The sketches of his experiences and his list of lessons on happiness become the framework of the story.

On the second screening, I released my resistance and uncovered deeper meaning. Hector’s story demonstrated some of the same spiritual principles that I had experienced on my own journey. Once I expressed the intent to find out what I was put on this earth to do, the universe kicked in to teach me.  Likewise, once Hector expresses the intent to discover how to be happy, the universe reaches out to show him.

A world weary businessman offers to show Hector what real happiness is by sharing the pleasures that money can buy in Shanghai. Hector writes, “A lot of people think happiness means being richer and more important.” But it becomes clear that the businessman is only living for the next financial conquest. Constantly working towards a goal is a way of avoiding life - and happiness.

Hector takes the prerequisite New Age trek to a Buddhist temple in the Himalayas.  Hector asks the famous monk how he is able to be happy when he has gone through so much. The monk answers that he is happy BECAUSE he has gone through so much. Hector scribbles, “Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness.” The monk takes Hector to see colorful cloth strips flapping in the wind. As he and the other monks joyfully laugh and dance under the colorful strips, he calls out, “Hector! Look at all of them!”  

But it isn’t enough to jot down lessons in his journal, Hector must experience them himself. Next stop Africa, to help his doctor friend care for the villagers. His journal entry reads, “Happiness is answering your calling.” But Hector has more to learn. He has to go through some brutal experiences to finally feel alive.  

Hector’s search for happiness takes him across the world.  But he only experiences the brilliant colors inside of him when he decides to take down the walls he built and be present in his life and work. His true happiness lies in sharing that authentic, messy life with Clara.  

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com

Welcome to (the Real) Me

At first glance, this quirky indie comedy appears to be a send-up of our obsession with fame and pop psychology showcasing Kristin Wiig as a ditzy, narcissistic lottery winner who buys her own talk show, aptly titled, “Welcome to Me.”

This satire, by director Shira Piven and screenwriter Eliot Laurance, has so much more to say than the trailer lets on.  The movie opens with Alice Klieg (Kristin Wiig at her funniest) playing a worn out VHS recording of an Oprah Episode and affirming along with her hero, “Everybody comes to our beautiful planet earth to do something great, something unique, something that only you were born to do.” 

Director Shira Piven

Fortified with this belief, she heads off to the convenience store with her pink umbrella to buy her daily lottery ticket.  When she wins 86 million dollars, she doesn’t seem surprised at all. She is more interested in reading a prepared statement about how she realized her vision, than celebrating or spending her winnings. When her big moment is interrupted (she confesses her use of masturbation as a sedative), she has a meltdown. She reads another prepared statement to her psychiatrist about how she will no longer be needing his hurtful services since she will be living her new life as Millionaire Alice.  He encourages her to get back on her meds. Instead, she finds an outlet to express herself by hiring a failing infomercial company to produce her talk show – about herself.

What appears to be a vanity project, is really about a woman who wants to be seen and understood.  In the first episode, she shares how she created her own success with her positive affirmations. In a cooking demonstration, she “bakes” a meat cake from her high protein diet to show that she is capable of controlling her illness (currently called borderline personality disorder) without depending on mind numbing meds.  

I love how every detail of the set design shows what it’s like to be in Alice’s world. On stage is a replica of her bedroom with her collections organized by the colors of her moods, representing her need to control her world.  She finds comfort in her swan collection, so she shares that with her audience by riding in on a swan boat. 

Then there are the performance art segments of her show, which serve as unsupervised psychodrama. She watches from the stage as “actors” portray the traumatic events in her life. She gets so caught up in the recreations herself that she starts yelling at the people who hurt her.  When the actors get it right, she furiously points it out to the audience – as if to say, “See! See! Look what happened to me!” She has a desperate need to express herself, for others to know what she is going through. The good with the ugly and inappropriate.  She rends the walls of her soul laying open gaping wounds.

She develops a following – mostly because of a morbid fascination. Her fans can’t look away from the train wreck that is her life. She also gains their respect for the way she courageously bares her wounded psyche.  There are glimpses of genius as she portrays the truth that the rest of us are unwilling to face in ourselves or society. The audience watches until it gets too painful to continue.

After the hilarious set-up, sadness sat heavily at the bottom of my stomach.  It brought out the hopelessness I felt (still feel) when my son was “diagnosed” with a mental illness and the way he has been stigmatized by it and put on mind-altering drugs – numbing away his uniqueness and creativity. My smart, creative son who had all the promise in the world.

I love the way, “Welcome to Me,” shows that someone with mental illness is capable of having a caring relationship and is worthy of love - that they also have positive traits and talents we can admire. This movie does much to create understanding of mental illness…and raises questions about how we as a society deal with it. 

Movie blessings! 

Jana Segal 

www.reelinspiration.blogspot.com