Happiness for Beginners

Helen Carpenter is a schoolteacher who has spent her life avoiding risk, and when her marriage ends in divorce she signs up for a backcountry survival course along the Appalachian Trail. The program throws her together with a group of strangers, among them Jake, the irritating friend of her younger brother. What begins as an attempt to distract herself from the breakup becomes a physical and emotional test, and Helen discovers more about herself and about the people around her than she expected.

The film is an adaptation of Katherine Center's novel of the same name, directed by Vicky Wight, who also wrote the screenplay and produced. It is her second feature, following The Lost Husband in 2020, and it continues her involvement with stories built around women starting over. Ellie Kemper leads the cast as Helen, with Luke Grimes as Jake, and supporting roles played by Nico Santos, Blythe Danner, Ben Cook and Shayvawn Webster.

Released in July 2023, the film runs 103 minutes and mixes adventure and comedy with drama and romance. It has drawn modest but consistent responses from viewers on both IMDb and TMDB, where it holds a rating of 6.1 out of 10; the much larger vote count on IMDb indicates a broader audience there than on TMDB.