Summary
- Happiness for Beginners, a feel-good drama, takes viewers on a picturesque journey through beautiful real-world locations as Helen reclaims her life.
- Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut, serves as the primary filming location for the opening scenes and Helen's visit to her grandmother's place.
- The movie also showcases the real Appalachian Trail, where Helen and her hiking team embark on their survivalist course, covering a significant portion of the trail.
Happiness for Beginners' primary appeal lies in all the picturesque landscapes it walks through while unfolding its romantic plot - hence, here's a breakdown of its filming locations. Adapted from a book of the same name, Happiness for Beginners is a feel-good drama that focuses on a divorced woman, Helen. After feeling stuck and lost following her failed marriage, Helen decides to grab her life by the horns and sets out on a survivalist course, where she finds her brother's best friend, Jake. What begins as a step towards self-exploration becomes a cathartic journey for Helen as she learns to find peace and love.
In its runtime of an hour and forty minutes, not only does Happiness for Beginners present a heartwarming love story but also gives viewers a glimpse of many beautiful real-world locations. The movie's emphasis on nature and how it plays a crucial role in helping Helen realign her priorities evokes curiosity about where exactly it was filmed. Therefore, here is a rundown of all the known locations where Netflix's Happiness for Beginners was shot.
Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut
Some of the early scenes in Happiness for Beginners set the stage for Helen's hiking trip by highlighting what she wishes to get out of her vacation and what she has been through since her divorce. These opening moments in Happiness for Beginners were primarily filmed in Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut. Even the scenes where Helen drops by their grandmother Gigi's place before heading over to the starting point of the hike were shot in Stamford. As Happiness for Beginners portrays in its opening arc, the hikers meet up at a Connecticut Motel, where they sign their waivers and get instructions from their guide Beckett.
According to reports, the principal photography of Happiness for Beginners started sometime in September 2021 and was wrapped up the same year in November. As the above tweet suggests, many netizens had spotted the movie's cast and crew in parts of Stamford, which is not surprising given how it was one of the primary filming locations for the Netflix film. In recent years, Stamford, Connecticut has been a popular filming location where many other mainstream movies like Disney +'s Chang Can Dunk, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and Revolutionary Road have also been filmed.
The Appalachian Trail
From its opening scenes, Happiness for Beginners establishes that Helen has booked a beginners Appalachian Trail survivalist course. Staying true to its setting, Happiness for Beginners unfolds a significant portion of its narrative on the real Appalachian Trail. After Helen and the rest of the hiking team meet at the Connecticut motel, a bus takes them 50+ miles away from the location and drops them off at the nearest point on the Appalachian Trail. Also known as A.T., the real-world hiking trial in Happiness for Beginners es through 14 U.S. states and covers a total distance of nearly 2,200 miles (3,540 km) from Geogia's Springer Mountain to Maine's Mount Katahdin.
Since Helen and her newfound friends hike for over ten days, they cover a huge chunk of the trail. In an interview (via EW), Ellie Kemper, who plays Helen in Happiness for Beginners, opened up about her grounding in hiking and explained that even though she did some hiking when she was much younger, they had experts on the movie's sets to help them understand what actual hiking and camping looked like. As seen in the Instagram post above, Ben Cook, who plays Beckett in Happiness for Beginners, also posted some behind-the-scenes pictures from the movie's shooting in the wilderness of the Appalachian Trail.
Bear Mountain, New York
In another interview (via Shondaland), Ellie Kemper recalled how far they went into the wilderness to film scenes for Happiness for Beginners. She mentioned they went "a little bit further north in New York for" filming the movie and also visited Bear Mountain. The Office star further explained that since they filmed the movie during the fall of 2021, "it was a beautiful time of year to be out there."
Although nearly all scenes from Netflix's Happiness for Beginners were shot in real-world locations, the movie created some fictional names for certain locations just to add a layer of intrigue and creative freedom to its storytelling. For instance, the hiking crew visits a place called The Painted Meadow as the last stop of their trip in the movie. As beautiful as this spot in Happiness for Beginners may seem, it is not a real location.
Sources: EW, Shondaland
