HECTOR AND THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS

Directed by Peter Chelsom
Screenplay by Maria von Heland and Peter Chelsom & Tinker Lindsay
Based on the Novel „Le Voyage D’Hector“ Written by François Lelord and published by Editions Odile Jacob

TRAILER AND INFO

Cast

Rosamund Pike
Clara
Simon Pegg
Hector
Toni Collette
Agnes
Stellan Skarsgård
Edward
Christopher Plummer
Professor Coreman
Jean Reno
Diego
Chris Gauthier
Roger
Chad Willett
Allan
Togo Igawa
Old Monk
Jakob Davies
Young Hector
Gabrielle Rose
French Proprietress
Deborah Rosan
Actress
Veronica Ferres
Anjali
Rebecca Davis
April
Barry Atsma
Michael
Marcus Shakesheff
Office Boy
Ming Zhao
Ying Li
Tessa Jubber
US Woman – LA Flight
Raj Lal
Bartender
Hannah Longworth
Lilly
Aiden Longworth
Jack
Jordan Schartner
Evil Plane Assassin
Aaron Le
Young Monk
Sivan Raphaely
LA Stewardess
Adrian Preoteasa
Student

Produced by

John Albanis co-producer
Christian Angermayer executive producer
Hilary Davis associate producer
Klaus Dohle producer
Trish Dolman producer
Christine Haebler producer
Marc Hansell executive producer
Peter Hermann line producer
Phil Hunt producer
Stephen Kelliher associate producer
Jens Meurer executive producer
Yasin Qureshi co-producer
Markus Reinecke associate producer
Compton Ross producer
Elliot Ross executive producer
Fenella Ross executive producer
Judy Tossell producer
Brad Van Arragon line producer

Music by

Dan Mangan

Cinematography by

Kolja Brandt

Film Editing by

Claus Wehlisch

Casting By

Deborah Aquila
Judy Lee
Tricia Wood

Production Design by

Michael Diner

Art Direction by

Laurel Bergman
Emilia Roux

Set Decoration by

James Boatman (set dresser)
James Willcock

Costume Design by

Guy Speranza

Makeup Department

Anne Carroll key hair stylist
Monica Huppert key makeup artist

Production Management

Cheryl Eatock production manager: Africa
Jim O’Grady production manager
Michael Williams production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director

Paula Antil third assistant director
Paul Barry first assistant director
Philip Nee Nee second assistant director
Amanda Petura trainee assistant director

Art Department

John Beatty construction coordinator
Shannon Courte art department coordinator / graphic designer
Robert J. Dugdale artist
Kate Hilson graphic designer
Garry Moore standby carpenter
Emilia Roux art supervisor: South Africa
Maggie Wilson property master
Renata Zaleska assistant property master

Sound Department

Adrian Baumeister dialogue editor
Michael Hough boom operator
Mark Noda sound mixer
Carsten Richter foley artist
Markus Stemler sound designer
Martin Steyer sound re-recording mixer
Marcus Sujata foley mixer

Special Effects by

Alex Burdett special effects supervisor
Terence J. Cox special effects technician

Visual Effects by

Matthias Albrecht digital film editor
Sebastian Göhs digital colorist
Thomas Ramin technical director: CinePostproduction

Stunts

Dan Hirst stunt coordinator / stunt double: Simon Pegg
Glenn Marks stunt coordinator
Owen Walstrom stunt coordinator

Camera and Electrical Department

Ed Araquel still photographer
Chris Cavanagh video operator: UK
Julian Chapdelaine grip
Nicholas Dent grip
Niklas Fischer second assistant camera: Germany
Kieran Humphries first assistant camera: “a” camera
Gaelle Jego lighting technician
Justin Johns video assist operator
Justin Lesch best boy grip: second unit
Oliver Loncraine camera operator: uk
Collin Morrison lighting technician
Dietmar Raiff first assistant camera: Bavaria
Cody Rusinko lighting technician
Dean Schwingboth best boy grip
Ian Seabrook underwater director of photography
Kat Spencer central loader: UK unit
Michael Swan camera operator
Derek Ueckermann first assistant camera: South Africa
Kieran Waites electrician
Tyler Woeste first assistant camera

Casting Department

Bonnie Lee Bouman casting: South Africa
James Forsyth extras casting
Edward D. Rea casting associate

Music Department

Adrian Baumeister music editor
Falko Duczmal score recording engineer
Henning Fuchs music coordinator / music editor / music production coordinator berlin / orchestrator
Peter Fuchs score mixer

Transportation Department

Gord Alyward transportation captain
Billy McRobbie driver: cast

Other crew

Daisy Baldry floor runner: UK
Dave Booys production assistant
Anne-Cécile Boulais production assistant
Robert Brinkschulte script translator
Gero Brugmann legal services: production financing
James Cleave floor runner: UK
Peter Cummings product placement / research: clearance & placement
Ian Doig animal coordinator: Canada
Claire Finbow assistant: Simon Pegg
Katie Gallant production assistant
Rebekka Garrido project supervisor Post Republic
Meredith Garstin production assistant
Iona Harris assistant to director: UK Unit / assistant to director: UK
Carol Heij production coordinator: africa
Patti Henderson additional script supervisor
Danny Ho playback supervisor
Lorraine Jamison unit publicist
Frank Lehmann production executive
Grace MacLeod animal trainer: Canada
Emma Mallett production coordinator: UK
Andrew Thomas Mckenzie stand-in for simon pegg/floor runner: UK
Jim McKeown producer’s assistant
Hanna Menon production assistant
Dave T. Nall wrangler
Mark O’Connell social media manager
Lawra Robertson assistant to brad van arragon
Christopher Spencer assistant production coordinator
Lydia Strojin production assistant
David Taylor unit manager: uk
David Taylor unit manager: uk
Amanda Verhagen production office assistant
Adam Webb location assistant
Chris Webb location manager: uk
Mark Wilson assistant location manager: uk
Anthony Wittrock production assistant
Tomas Wittrup director assistant
Laura Wootton stand-in for rosamund pike: UK
Andrew Jack dialect coach: Veronica Ferres (uncredited)
Harro von Have legal advisor: financing (uncredited)

Hector is a successful young psychiatrist with the right spectacles, the right office furniture, and all the right medications at his disposal but he feels like a failure. His patients—an urban, educated, and seemingly privileged class of people—are persistently unhappy, and despite his excellent training and sympathetic ear, Hector doesn’t know how to truly help them. Even worse, he finds himself becoming increasingly drained and dissatisfied by his own life, including his uncertain relationship with an equally successful pharmaceutical marketing professional named Clara.

Ready for a break, Hector books a vacation with a mission: He will travel the world in search of what makes people happy or unhappy. Since Clara is too busy with work, he sets out on his own, stopping first in China to visit his old school friend Édouard. Through Édouard, a lonely businessman trapped on the money-making treadmill, he learns one of his first lessons—that no matter how fine the wine, happiness can’t really be bought. He also meets a young woman, Ying Li, who teaches him about love, and an elderly monk who questions the very nature of his journey but invites him to return when he’s completed it.

From there, Hector travels to Africa to visit another friend, a doctor working with impoverished patients. Here again, Hector finds plenty of new inspiration in his study of happiness, from a meal with a local family to cheerful conversations in the hotel bar with a drug lord and a bartender. When he has a run-in with the local mob and is held hostage in a storage closet for a terrifying spell, however, he finds himself faced with newer, starker realities.

Narrowly escaping his death, Hector travels to the United States to meet with a happiness expert. He shares his collected wisdom with the scholar and manages to draw a few more conclusions about the connection between happiness and relationships. After returning to meet with the Chinese monk a second time, Hector is finally ready to put his learning to work—and bring his hard-won research home.

This charming debut from psychiatrist and self-help author François Lelord—now an international bestseller—is an engaging parable about modern man’s never-ending search for contentment. Told with a fairy tale’s naïve wisdom and a satirist’s dry wit, Hector and the Search for Happiness distills a complex world of immigrant peasants, kindly drug barons, doctors without borders, depressed psychics, and lovelorn academics into a feel-good life manual.