Metacritic reviews

Hector is trying to say something true about a generation of quietly dissatisfied demi-adults who are terrified to take emotional risks. At least it left its comfort zone and tried.

Despite the gusto its star brings to the role, it's hard to ride shotgun on Hector's voyage of discovery.

Simon Pegg plays the world’s most unconvincing psychiatrist in this fluffy, irritating Brit comedy.

Hector wants to connect to our inner child, but it feels more like a long story from a good-hearted but dull grandparent.

Mr. Pegg, normally a live wire, makes an affable hero, but the movie often forces him into blandly earnest mugging.

If there's a positive to be taken away from Hector and the Search for Happiness, it's that British cinema doesn't get much worse than this.

What distinguishes the film from last year’s backpacking adventure, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, apart from its lobotomised worldview and charred, corroded soul, are Hector’s philosophical musings – “people who are afraid of death are afraid of life,” is one – that pop up on screen in a handwritten font whenever a lesson has been learnt.

Happiness means steering clear of Hector and the Search for Happiness.

The film manages, impressively, to be both crushingly banal and offensive in its use of cultural stereotypes. Watching it is like being brutally violated by a greeting card.

Even with appearances by such dependable performers as Toni Collette, Stellan Skarsgård, Christopher Plummer and Jean Reno, the interminable Hector and the Search for Happiness will most likely inspire audiences to search for the exit door.