Simon Pegg plays a psychiatrist who is dissatisfied with his life and therefore feels unfit to try to help his patients find happiness. So he sets out to travel the world and try to figure out what makes people happy. Which involves traveling to China, Africa (where in Africa, who the fuck knows), and then Los Angeles. The last two stops involve checking in on two of his oldest friends, including the fabled "one who got away." Through all this, his girlfriend Clara, who did not come on the trip, is growing increasingly frustrated and distant.
There are times the movie feels like it thinks it's making some very profound statement about the human condition. And then sometimes it feels like the movie knows there isn't a simple obvious answer. Hector has a journal Clara gave him, and he fills it with various notes about happiness. Like, "comparison may inhibit happiness," or "people afraid of death are afraid of living." Those could be trite and cutesy, or simply the best way to describe what that particular character has figured out.
I can never quite ditch the annoyance at the superficial air of the thing long enough to get fully invested. Very nice for Hector that he can just stop working for awhile to go travel the world and whatever to try and figure his shit out. Oh, he had homemade sweet potato stew and danced around in "Africa", how wonderful.
I'm guessing the movie didn't the work for me.
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