It's been a while since I noted anything about a movie I watched, although I don't think it's been as long since I've watched a movie.

I DVR'd this one from a cable movie channel, to watch at my convenience. I've seen it before, and like it. I've always managed to come in a little late, though, and thought I'd like to catch the beginning.

Robin Williams plays a man, Hector, through a series of stories of personal discovery. The story is narrated, providing a continuity between and through the stories. They're all about a man, a woman, some children, and his travels. The stories metaphorically track the experiences of what seems to be the main story; a divorced man trying to re-involve himself in his children's lives after some time of absence.

The stories seem to tell the tale that late in the movie Williams tells to his children as they wait out some rain in a diner. The break-up of the parents, a time in jail, wrestling with his past, finding a new life, and finally coming back into their lives after a four year gap.

The stories are well constructed, and I think interesting in their own. There are a few instances where the tales of these different men in their different times are the story of our main Hector. The characters are colorful, the settings accurate, the movement of the stories fluid, and the tale solid throughout. It's a self-discovery movie, where the discovery takes five-thousand years.

I recommend the film for anyone into a little personal-growth drama, with bits of period thrown in. The film is specked with familiar faces, but not overwhelmed by star-power, instead relying on solid performance.

Spoiler follows.

The story starts, I now know, with a man and his children at a beach-front home. We're looking through a window from inside with the children as we watch him preparing for a fire. They're observing and commenting with some detached curiosity; a little bravado to brazen themselves from disappointment, perhaps. The voice over starts with a woman and the man discussing a generic story about a man, a woman, children, and travels.

We change suddenly to see Hector as a caveman. Not a prehistoric caveman, but a pre-house building cave man. He and his children and woman live in a cave. They're beset by marauders who arrive by boat and take the woman and children from him. They initially start trying to run away, but the woman falls behind, and sacrifices herself for the children. He takes the children and hides in the woods, where they're discovered as he's foraging for food, and taken by the marauders. No one is harmed, and they're loaded on a boat and prepare to sail off. He does nothing to stop them, hiding until the boats are just leaving shore. The marauders notice an apparent altar, and take Hector to it, bound with rope around his wrists. They don't speak the same language, and hector cannot convey that he didn't stack the rocks, and that he doesn't know what they're for. The marauders leave Hector on the beach, alone, taking his family with them.

We shift to see Hector as a slave in Greece or Rome; somewhere during those ancient times. He's the best slave of a man doomed after a ship he borrowed money to fill with goods has been pirated. The man has to commit suicide as payment of his debt, and during his contrived confession, he names Hector, his slave, as a conspirator. Hector doesn't want to die a slave, so his master (John Turturro) writes him a note freeing him so they can die together as free men. The master dies after accidentally stabbing himself in the stomach, but Hector decides to live on. He grabs some of his masters cash, boots, and cape, takes his girlfriend and they set sail.

We move to see Hector now travelling by horse-drawn cart in medieval Italy. He's travelling with his companion (Vincent D'Onofrio) who portrays himself to be a priest. Hector is trying to convince his friend it's time to go home after a year together. There's a war on, and the priest is called into service, so they part ways. Hector joins a woman they'd met on the cart, and follows her to her home. There he meets her children and mother, learning that her man had died. He thinks for a bit and realizes that isn't the place for him, so he moves on to try to find his way home.

We then arrive on a beach, after a shipwreck. We're with Hector still, but this time he's got a slave as a companion. Also in the shipwreck is his former gal, who is travelling with her new man. Hector is desperate to talk to the woman, who wants nothing to do with him. There was evidently a bad break-up, although we're never given the details. Eventually the survivors separate into a group following some natives into the desert, and a group who decides to wait on the beach. She grants him audience, and he tries to apologize. He's evidently doing it wrong as she dismisses him, and he still feels unsettled. Her new man sends Hector on his way, after they exchange shoes.

We finally see the Hector that opened the film. He's involved with a shady business partner (William H. Macy) who entangles him in dealing with a problem with a slum they've evidently invested in together as he's trying to leave for the first meeting with his children after four years. They're going to spend the weekend at "the beach house," trying to get to know each other again. The children are teenaged, give or take, with the boy teetering on early teen, and the daughter on mid-teen.

During this act, we get Hector's synopsis of his life during and after the split. The story parallels the travels of Hector through time, as we've seen. The break-up that he did nothing to stop (caveman Hector). His time in jail (Hector as a slave), meeting a woman (medieval Hector), and trying to come to terms with his past (shipwrecked Hector) so he can start over.