{"id":51365,"date":"2024-06-12T10:18:53","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T14:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/?p=51365"},"modified":"2026-04-16T13:39:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:39:56","slug":"happiness-for-beginners-2023-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/happiness-for-beginners-2023-review\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Happiness for Beginners’ (2023) Review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Newly divorced Helen (Ellie Kemper<\/a><\/strong>) is struggling to get her life back on track. She has a strained relationship with her carefree brother, and a difficult childhood has made it hard for her to open herself up to people and new experiences. So she decides to take a wilderness survival course, unaware that her brother’s best friend Jake (Luke Grimes<\/a><\/strong>) has also signed up for the hike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happiness for Beginners<\/em> is one of those movies I had never heard of before Netflix recommended it to me. But I like Ellie Kemper a lot, so I finally gave it a watch. This movie was a pleasant surprise! While I do not spend a lot of time out in the woods, I’ve always enjoyed nature trails, and every now and then, I think about how much fun it would be to go on a proper hike somewhere. I don’t know if I would want to go with strangers, but I digress!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kemper’s Helen seems to be at a crossroads in her life. She had a fairly traumatic childhood with the death of her younger brother and subsequent abandonment by her parents. She keeps herself at a distance from most people, including her other brother. But she is hoping a weekend wilderness trip will somehow reset her life…and wouldn’t you know, it does! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with her brother’s best friend, Jake, Helen is surrounded by much younger people, including Beckett, the hiking guide. They’ve all got their own eccentricities, but over time, they learn to work as a team, and Helen learns to take charge rather than fall behind. Jake’s unrequited crush on Helen is pretty evident, and the two of them become closer despite Helen’s best attempts at self-sabotage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jake is a great leading man. He’s a former doctor who is quiet but attentive and not entirely afraid to call out Helen when she needs it. I haven’t seen Luke Grimes in much, but I greatly enjoyed his performance. Ellie Kemper is well known for her supporting comedic roles, and I found her performance as Helen to be a nice change from the usual perky, optimistic characters she takes on. While I wasn’t blown away by her chemistry with Grimes, they were cute enough together that it didn’t completely throw off the romantic aspect of the movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highlight of Jake and Helen’s blossoming romance is Jake’s small speech to Helen at the end of the movie regarding his feelings for her. It was sweet as hell, and I wonder just how much more lovely it would have been had Kemper and Grimes had more chemistry with one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in all, Happiness for Beginners <\/em>is worth watching. It’s a cozy little movie about finding oneself and developing camaraderie with others, especially in the wilderness, where help and supplies are scarce. This movie is based on Katherine Center’s 2015 novel, and I will definitely be checking it out soon because I’m eager to hear more of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a quiet afternoon available sometime in the future, definitely watch Happiness for Beginners<\/em>, and then come back here and let me know what you think!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watched:<\/strong> 05\/22\/2024
Notable Song<\/strong>: Just Like Heaven by The Cure<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rating:<\/strong><\/div>
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Happiness for Beginners Synopsis: Helen signs up for a wilderness survival course, a year after getting divorced. She discovers through this experience that sometimes, you have to get really lost in order to find yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[468,1],"tags":[3532,4502,4503,2030,3426,4507,4506,4509,4501,4505,3655,4508],"class_list":["post-51365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews-h","category-reviews","tag-3532","tag-alexander-koch","tag-ben-cook","tag-blythe-danner","tag-ellie-kemper","tag-esteban-benito","tag-gus-birney","tag-julia-shiplett","tag-luke-grimes","tag-nico-santos","tag-3-5-stars","tag-vicky-wight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51365"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81486,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51365\/revisions\/81486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theromcomcatalog.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}