REVIEW: ‘Happiness For Beginners’ Doesn’t Spark Much Joy

Happiness for Beginners is a Netflix Original rom-com directed by Vicky Wight and written by Wright and Katherine Center. Helen (Ellie Kemper) has been pretty miserable for as long as anybody can remember. But now that she’s getting divorced, she’s taking a hiking trip to try and find herself. While she’s at it, she’s also finding Jake (Luke Grimes), her brother’s best friend who also happens to have taken up the same hiking trip.

Happiness for Beginners is fine. It’s not bad, it just tries too hard to be serious too many times and never really lands any of them meaningfully. It also struggles to find any true comedic feet. Instead, we just have a middling journey of self-discovery with a technically successful conclusion but little to show for it.

I like all of the other characters who take the trek with Helen and Jake. There’s a fairly stereotypical bent to each of them, but they never cross into being annoying or caricature. They’re actually all surprisingly likable, even with some of their more aggravating qualities. But mostly they’re just all nice people with sweet quirks and fair insights. I’d be glad to find myself in a hiking group with any of them any time.

It’s not enough to really carry the movie. There are a lot of title cards and other cutesy elements that add a layer of juvenility to the movie that isn’t quite matched by the actual tone. It’s not as slapstick, or really any kind of funny as a vehicle like that would make you anticipate. And when the movie leans hard the other way into drama, it comes off just as disinteresting.

Multiple times the movie takes a completely dramatic turn that I wouldn’t say fail by any means, but they don’t give me the sense of importance or weight that I feel like Happiness for Beginners might have been going for. Especially some of the big personal reveals between Jake and Helen. While the first bigger dramatic turn is purely a plot device that does its job well enough without becoming awkward, these two personal revelations just fall flat.

I have to also complain about how the sets are just not nearly as beautiful and perfect as the characters profess. There are some nice, sweeping autumnal drone shots, but the actual campsites and trails just lack anything special. In fact, the location that is claimed to be the most incredible of them all just feels like a lifeless and empty glen, cinematically at least.

In the end, Happiness for Beginners isn’t bad, but it can’t really seem to find its way in either comedy or sincerity. There aren’t really many funny parts to speak of and the drama is way too serious.

Happiness for Beginners is streaming now on Netflix.