People should go to the cinema.  It is the best way to see a movie, and how most directors intend them to be viewed while shooting them.  It is a social experience, connecting yourself to the rest of humanity over the emotions of a story . . . most of the time, anyway.  There has been instances when this has not happened for me, but they are best left in the past.  For those of you who regularly follow The Legionnaire, you have probably noticed that I go to the theater at least once a week to bring you a new release.  Since COVID, this routine has been different, namely in the fewer people one can find in the seats.  A broader trend to blame for this, one that goes back before the pandemic, is the rise of streaming services.  Unfortunately, people seem to prefer the comfort of their homes rather than paying the money and time to see a film somewhere else.  I am not here to blame.  Rather, I think these alternative modes of cinematic consumption play an important role.  Without them, I do not think we would have a movie like Netflix’s Happiness for Beginners (2023), and that would be a shame.  We can have both, my friends, and everyone can be satisfied based on what they like to watch.  Satisfaction is a good word for today’s entry.

It is not that Helen (Ellie Kemper) is in need of Happiness for Beginners, at least based on the list she has assembled for why she is going on a nature survival course hike on the Appalachian Trail.  With items like finding a deeper connection and rising like a phoenix, it is more like she is trying to find the feeling after losing it.  It goes further back than her failed marriage to Mike (Aaron Roman Weiner), which she went through with despite warnings from her younger brother Duncan (Alexander Koch).  Though she thinks Duncan irresponsible, she is nonetheless letting him watch her Pittsburgh home while she goes on her adventure.  Though the ride to where she is meeting her fellow hikers is uneventful, the group of people that she is about to spend the next couple of weeks with are colorful.  It starts with their high-strung guide, Beckett (Ben Cook), who makes every aspect of their equipment and physical upkeep seem like a matter of life or death.  An unexpected addition to their band is Jake (Luke Grimes).  He is Duncan’s best friend, somebody Helen has known for years, and among those who had seen right away that Mike was not right for her.  As such, Helen finds Jake annoying, and initially demands that he leave.  He protests, saying that he had booked the trip months ago without knowing she had done the same.  Besides, it appears that Jake and psychology student Windy (Shayvawn Webster) are an early item.  Since Helen and Windy are tent mates, Windy admits on their first night that she has a crush on Jake.  Helen’s reaction is negative, listing off all the problems she sees with him.  Then again, this could be a function of the issues she had to deal with on the first leg of the hike.  The third point on her list had been to earn a badge while on the trip.  Yet, mistakes like forgetting the proper shoes, immediately cutting her leg open on a rock, and stepping on a fallen and rotted tree branch, has brough Beckett’s ire.  Of course, that is not a difficult thing to accomplish.  Eventually, though, they settle into the flow of their journey, walking for a day, setting up camp, eating, sleeping, and then doing it all over the next day.  As they go along, Beckett is drilling into them the skills that are supposed to be what they are learning about being in the wilderness.  Helen is slowly getting the hang of things, but continues to be bothered by Jake, who she feels pays more attention to her than he should be doing.  This personal angst, though, has nothing to do with the fact that she is placed with the slower set of hikers.  This is done on a day when the larger group is split into two, and each set are told that they need to navigate on their own around a trail and back to where they started.  Those that Helen are with get lost not long into their venture.  While the majority of them pour over the map to attempt to figure out how to get back to the correct path, Hugh (Nico Santos) does not follow about avoiding rotten wood.  Upon the log giving way, he breaks his leg.  Helen takes charge, leaving him in the care of the others while she goes ahead to find Beckett and the rest.  She reaches the camp just as they are beginning to worry, earning her a measure of respect.  The next day, they construct a makeshift litter and get Hugh to safety before continuing.  On their last day, one spent at Beckett’s favorite spot, Helen and Jake relate some of what they have been feeling about each other.  For him, it is about how she had been happy prior to marrying Mike.  Jake shares all the memories he has of that time, which touches Helen.  He also reveals that the reason he is leaving the medical profession is because he has an eye disease that is slowly causing him to go blind.  With this, they almost kiss, but are interrupted.  Upon getting to the hotel they first gathered at, Helen sees Windy kiss Jake on the cheek, but is told he is interested in someone back home.  With this, she decides to drive back to Pittsburgh early, staying with her grandmother Gigi (Blythe Danner).  Before going to bed, Helen reads the note Jake had left with her, a poem that shows the obvious: that he is in love with her.  In the morning, Duncan arrives and they have a mending of fences before going with Gigi to a party.  Unsurprisingly, Jake shows up and they dance their way into each other’s arms and the end of the movie.

You might think that this new relationship is the answer for Helen in Happiness for Beginners.  It is a romantic comedy after all, and this is the romance.  Yet, it is delightfully more complicated than that in a way that this Catholic reviewer can appreciate.  My most Catholic response, at least initially, is to view the hike as a spiritual retreat.  Actually, one of the hikers, Sue (Julia Shiplett), treats it as such.  She takes it a step further, vowing silence for the entire journey, though she breaks it often for comedic effect.  Regardless, doing so is an excellent solution to begin to treat that which ails you.  Everyone enrolled in this course is there because there is something going on in their lives that they feel only a return to nature can fix.  People go on retreats for similar reasons, and do so without talking, often for up to a month at a time.  I hope to do one over the summer, though not for as long of a period.  Being quiet is essential.  It may sound like a cliché, but God speaks to us in the silence.  It is a major factor in why people love being out in the middle of nowhere: for the quiet.  Either that, or they are terrified by it, which can be another indication of woundedness.  It is that emotional hurt that is at the center of this story, and why it makes for a satisfactory watch.  Duncan and Helen had a little brother who died when they were young.  Despite their youth, she had been close to him, and she blames herself for his accidental, untimely death.  She knows that it is illogical to take such responsibility. Nonetheless, such is the pain we carry with us, which the enemy is all too happy to keep weighted upon us, that we cannot shift it when we are surrounded by the noise of civilization.  One can point to the increasing din we insert into our lives with a concurrent dip in faith in God.  Hence, we go to the mountains because they are calling, and God is there to be more easily heard.

Of course, I cannot say that Helen, or even Sue, heard the voice of God in Happiness for Beginners.  At the same time, we can be thankful for the turning point the hike, or retreat, did for Helen.  One should watch such films, even if it takes business away from the cinema, because they could inspire you to seek out your own reset.  God is waiting for you.