Happiness for Beginners: Don't Let Anyone Tell You Camping is Romantic

Look, I don't like camping. In my opinion, the whole of human history has been directed to the point where we could turn on the lights after dark, cook without starting a fire, and sleep in a warm, soft place. Deliberately choosing to sleep outside is like slapping your ancestors in the face. Also, did I mention running water? Clean water of various temperatures comes out of your walls! Truly, we live in a time of miracles.

My husband loves camping and has tried many times to make it comfortable and enjoyable for me, but a decade into our relationship we've both accepted that I will never enjoy the outdoors as much as he does. Which is why he was surprised when I told him I was watching Happiness for Beginners, a 2023 Netflix rom-com that is set on a "beginner" camping/hiking trip. But I figured, hey, I'll watch two attractive people wander through the woods, as long as I get to stay here on the couch.

Helen (Ellie Kemper) is recently divorced and trying to find herself, so she signs up for a hiking trip in an attempt to break her malaise. She's surprised to find that her brother's best friend Jake (Luke Grimes) has also signed up for the trip. They pretend not to know each other because Helen is determined to be mean to him for no particular reason. She continues to be mean to him for most of the trip while he continues to be a hot doctor in a sweater who is clearly pining for her. At no point is he like, "hey, why are you so mean to me?" and at no point does she say, "hey, I'm sorry I've been so mean to you." But what does emotional growth matter when you can walk through sun-dappled woods in discreetly labeled Patagonia jackets, or snuggle in a tent with an REI logo so big it might as well be a billboard? Who needs chemistry when you have matching blue and pink jackets?

Also on the trip: a quirky cast of outsiders including Mason (Esteban Benito), a finance bro who treats nature like a task to be conquered, Sue (Julia Shiplett), who plans to take a vow of silence as soon as she finishes saying just one thing, and Beckett (Ben Cook), the overenthusiastic group leader who runs the trip with an iron fist. The best of the crew is Hugh (Nico Santos), a wannabe actor who settles for being an insurance agent, who steals every scene he's in. I would have liked to see more of Helen's brother Duncan (Alexander Koch) and her grandmother Gigi (Blythe Danner). At nearly two hours, this movie simultaneously feels like it has too much plot and too little. I'd say you could cut Helen's family entirely, but then you wouldn't get Blythe Danner's gorgeous but impractical deck situation:

To that end, all of the outdoors stuff does look quite beautiful: lots of trees and burbling brooks and wildflowers. But there's no way that could make up for the nightmare of this hike. Several of the people on the trip have never hiked before, but they appear to have signed up for a multiple week backpacking trip that even my camping-loving husband called "a death march." The longest I have ever camped was two days, and by the end I would have murdered a child if they got between me and a hot shower. And I didn't have to pack up all my tent and sleeping bag, carry it ten miles on my back, then sleep on the ground again! Life pro tip: if someone tells you that their beginner level trip is two weeks of hiking with no break, you should assume that they are going to walk you deep in the woods and murder you.

While I would have liked more relationship building between Helen and Jake, I still had a nice time watching this while on my warm, comfortable couch. I liked Kemper in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt but found her character unpleasant in this; I didn't like Grimes on Yellowstone, but I liked him much more here. He's really got his yearning face down. You could totally watch this with your grandmother and think about how nice it is to have warm soft blankets and electricity and hot tea and snacks on demand, and how you never ever ever want to go camping ever again.

Do you hate camping as much as I do? Send me a rant about how it's the worst!