“Hector and the Search for Happiness” and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” are two seemingly very dissimilar movies which are actually based on the same premise: the main character must undertake a journey—mostly filled with unhappiness—to reach his own understanding of how to find happiness. Both characters take bold moves to change their lives, experiencing love interests, the devastating loss of love interests, the danger of life-or-death situations, and ultimately their own revelations which allow them to carry on with their new lives.

The 2014 film “Hector and the Search for Happiness” is a wonderful depiction of the journey of one dissatisfied psychiatrist to discover the true meaning of happiness—both to help his patients and, in the end, himself. Hector begins his trip by taking a plane to China, seated in the Economy Class beside an up-tight businessman. Throughout his entire journey—from China, to a monastery, to Africa (where he is kidnapped), to Los Angeles, and back home—Hector makes it a point to ask everyone with whom he interacts what their own interpretation of happiness is. He is able to compile a list of fifteen notes on what happiness is (and is not). For example, after being seated next to Edward, the aforementioned businessman, he makes the following notes: “Making comparisons can spoil your happiness” because the businessman was constantly complaining that he would rather be in First Class; and after Edward explains to Hector that he believes happiness is meant to be retirement, but the only way to enjoy retirement is to not retire, “A lot of people think happiness is being rich or important.” 

More notably to the theme of the movie, however, are the observations: “Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness” and “Happiness is feeling completely alive.” While visiting the monastery in China, near the beginning of his long and eventful journey, Hector watches the monks celebrate as differently colored prayer flags all sway together in the wind. The following exclamation by one of the elder monks is emphasized: “Look, Hector: it’s all of them!” At the end of his journey, nearing the climax of the plot, Hector experiences a flashback to this moment while participating in an experiment by a neuroscientist named Dr. Coreman. In the experiment, Coreman instructs Hector to wear a helmet used for brain-scanning technology while imagining three different emotional scenarios (a memory in which he is happy, sad, and scared), allowing the doctor to tell which order of emotions he experienced by assigning different colors to the corresponding areas of the brain. At the start of the experiment, Coreman notes that Hector does not seem to be allowing himself to feel each emotion, and that “these are not the emotions of a grown man.” However, after receiving a call from his partner during the experiment and reconciling all the events and lessons of his journey, Hector could feel “all of [his emotions]” deeply in one moment instead of modulating and filtering them as he had been used to all his life. Coreman remarks that this, indeed, must be the point of happiness.

The 2012 film “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” may be more like “Hector and the Search for Happiness” than appears at first glance. This movie is about the experience of a freshman’s first year in high school, his relationships, and his own struggle with finding happiness despite having a dark, traumatic past. While the main character, Charlie, does not go on a literal journey to find happiness like Hector did, he certainly goes on his own metaphorical one. 

Like Hector, Charlie’s story begins with him being in an unsatisfying and frightful turning point of his life. On his first day of school, the only person he befriends is his English teacher. Eventually he is noticed by Patrick, the only senior in Charlie’s freshman shop class, and quickly accepted into Patrick and his step-sister’s group of friends (after revealing to them a small but significant portion of his troubled past). Instantly, of course, Charlie becomes infatuated with Patrick’s step-sister, Sam. However, as his story progresses and feelings are confessed, troubles arise when Sam leaves for college. Similarly, in “Hector and the Search for Happiness,” Hector—despite being in an admittedly complicated relationship with his girlfriend Clara—becomes involved with a young woman in China named Ying Li. The businessman Edward shows Hector what kind of happiness money can buy, and consequently Hector meets Ying Li at a club, who claims to be a student. The two innocently share a bed without having sex (Hector falls asleep before anything can happen), and he invites her out to lunch the following day. He is shocked when Ying Li’s pimp violently interrupts their lunch and forces her to leave, and Hector exclaims that she tricked him. 

Both Hector and Charlie must deal with the emotional consequences of the departure of their love interests; granted, Hector feigns much better than Charlie. Hector moves on and allows the experience to teach him a lesson (adding to his list of fifteen observations, “Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story”), while Charlie—at the climax of the story—has a breakdown, blacks out, and is admitted to a hospital before he can hurt himself. It is important to note, however, that Charlie’s breakdown was the result of a culmination of factors: not just the departure of Sam alone. Similarly, when Hector is kidnapped, imprisoned, and almost murdered in Africa, he comes to the realization that his journey was not solely for helping his patients or researching happiness, but instead to see if he can be happy himself. 

While these two movies seem to be entirely different in most regards, they both ultimately come together to describe the journeys of two characters to find their own happiness. Both Charlie and Hector begin in difficult parts of their lives and take bold moves to change it: one by taking a physical journey across the world, and the other by taking a journey through his first year of high school and real relationships. Both characters experience major character development by the departure of their love interests, and both discover the path to their own means of personal happiness.