This low-key ensemble hiking tale matches its forest setting -- attractive but never stunning, pleasant but not extraordinary.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 16, 2023

Happiness For Beginners might just about get you through the night before the Sav' Blanc runs out.

Full Review | Aug 9, 2023

This is the movie equivalent of background TV, something to have on while you're paying the bills, or something. There's cinematic comfort food and then there's just comfort, without the food.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 9, 2023

... A noble movie that allows Kemper to trek dramatic territory and command a story with solvency and charisma. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 8, 2023

A movie made for people who were too uncomfortable taking the journey with Reese Witherspoon in Wild and needed woefully undefined, annoying characters with a twist of Nicholas Sparks' ailment to finally see the light.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Aug 4, 2023

Playing somewhat like the movie Wild, but with a higher emphasis on rom-com elements and some of the occasional broad comedy, there’s certainly a warm spirit this film wants to impart, but it can’t help but trip over itself trying to do too many things.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/10 | Aug 4, 2023

Contrived

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4 | Aug 1, 2023

Ultimately, the film’s formulaic qualities are too much of a drag.

Full Review | Jul 31, 2023

Are there better rom-com options out there? Sure, but there’s also a ton that are worse.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Jul 30, 2023

This movie is a comfort watch, perfect for those who crave uncomplicated, undemanding Netflix rom-coms which occasionally manage to snatch a laugh or two.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 29, 2023

The characters get enough development to understand them, but not enough to fully care, and the story provides a lot of potential setups for comedy or action and inexplicably doesn’t deliver on any of them.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jul 29, 2023

Ellie Kemper’s comedic skills go to waste in Netflix’s Happiness for Beginners, a bland rom-com that is greatly lacking in either romance or comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 28, 2023

An excruciatingly dull and patronizing love child of Wild and The Big Year that is virtually free of humor and anything remotely interesting.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Jul 28, 2023

Like a mapped-out trail, you know where it will end up, but there's enough to enjoy along the way.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 28, 2023

Countless rom-coms end up in the same expected destination, but unlike the better entries in the genre, this one doesn’t take any unexpected turns in the journey. This is saying something given that this is a movie involving hiking.

Full Review | Jul 28, 2023

I haven’t seen Kemper really shine in a film is quite some time, so it was especially tough watching her push her comedic talents to the limits and have the film turn out so mediocre,

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 28, 2023

Awkward and phony, “Happiness for Beginners” plays like it was made by beginners.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 28, 2023

If this movie is insufficiently self-possessed to transcend its nature as streaming content and become something more than the sum of its parts, Wight still ensures that each of those parts contribute to a cumulative sense of coziness.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 27, 2023

The film is a heartwarming, gentle, understated romantic comedy. It is filled with laughs & its endearing qualities are strong enough to sustain it.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 27, 2023

Happiness for Beginners is a shrug of a movie with a side of sweet self-reflection... It’s a bland story executed blandly, with comedy that doesn’t make the cut and a romance that’ll leave you sighing in frustration rather than swooning.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 27, 2023