What do we think about show titles starting with “How To…” these days? On the one hand, there’s a lot of goodwill towards them since How To Get Away With Murder, or How To Train Your Dragon, or How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, or most prosaically, How To... with John Wilson, which I highly, highly recommend if you haven’t seen it. When else can say you watched a half-hour about scaffolding and loved it?

How To Get To Heaven From Belfast isn’t so accurate a title in terms of what the show’s about, as much as an indicator of what it’s like… wordy, Irish, and kind of messy. The new Netflix show from Lisa McGee, creator of Derry Girls, is either very much a spiritual successor of Derry Girls, or not at all, depending on your perspective. And the confusion in that statement *might* be the point:

The show is rich with the same megafast, hugely acidic unsentimental banter as Derry Girls or even Bad Sisters, deployed whether the characters are in life-threatening situations or run-of-the-mill car rides. That’s not me throwing all Irish shows in one bucket – I’m saying it’s a standard of Irish storytelling no matter who it’s about; The Banshees of Inisherin is exactly the same. (It is, however, me saying Irish people put WAY too much trauma on driving. Do you know how small that island is? They treat a three-hour drive like an ocean voyage with no guarantee of return.)

Everyone’s faults and flaws are regularly held up to the light, usually followed by a swift pivot to the flaws of the next person: “Oh?? Well at least I’m not (vicious but incredibly accurate reading for filth), am I?!” Fans of Derry Girls can close their eyes and imagine the lines spoken by grown-up Erin or Michelle or Clare, partly because the HTGTHFB characters have been friends since school, and we get plenty of flashbacks; but also partly, and deliciously, because the adult characters in HTGTHFB haven’t really ever grown up.

About that, a big ol’ sidebar:

The show makes a point of telling us the characters are 38, and I feel wildly conflicted about this. Is it essential to the story? I say no, but I can see the argument for the other side – that we need to know how long it’s been since The Thing happened in high school. But then we start looking at the actors going “38, huh? Really?”, and I can’t tell whether it really is an unnecessary detail that pulls us out, or whether my brain’s addled because it’s used to looking at 38-year-olds who have been Botoxing for two decades. And whether any of it matters? Thoughts?

Anyway. The constant criticism and snark seems a byproduct of Ireland’s baked-in Catholicism; ‘Everyone has many detrimental flaws that need to be examined in the daylight! It’s a given!’  But about that ‘everyone’; unlike Derry Girls, this show is also creepy, mysterious, and frequently ominous. Maybe those adjectives are a given once I tell you it’s also, delightfully, focused on the complicated, multi-layered relationships between girls, between women, and girls and women – i.e., mothers and daughters, or their proxies. There are a few men in the story, but they’re incidental obstacles, never what the show is about. Instead, there’s a hysterical adventurous road trip between friends who Never. Stop. Bickering, never let each other forget who they are or mistakes they’ve made, and ruthlessly hold each other to account. Which is hilarious! Right…? You guys…?

@netflixuk Say his name and he appears. #HowToGetToHeavenFromBelfast ♬ original sound - NetflixUK

Without spoiling, the show focuses on a Thing That Happened long ago, which is suddenly a present-day danger. On the one hand, it’s about how you can’t outrun your demons and have to face your traumas. Which, sure. But read just a bit more closely – and this is where my screenwriting self bumps up against my half-Irish-raised-by-an-Irish-mum self –  it’s about women who carry generational trauma inflicted on them by their mothers, who had it handed to them undeservedly from their mothers, etc.

In other words, every deeply-flawed woman onscreen has a choice: either you purge what doesn’t belong to you and own what does, or you never escape it. And even the most theoretically terrible crimes – like even the big big ones – can have understandable origins.

@netflixsa

Discovering a corpse that isn't actually your dead friend is one way to break the ice, I guess? 🔎 HOW TO GET TO HEAVEN FROM BELFAST is now playing on Netflix.

♬ original sound - Netflix South Africa

Which again, sounds heavy but … is it weird to say it’s actually quite fun? Despite a drastically different story from Derry Girls, there are nods to the show throughout, from school uniforms to highly confrontational convenience store clerks. Most notably, Saoirse-Monica Jackson appears halfway through the show, playing a fever dream of a character who makes no sense and all the sense at the same time.  

@netflixuk every time saoirse-monica jackson says BABES in #HowToGetToHeavenFromBelfast ♬ original sound - NetflixUK

The show moves at lightning speed – there is a whole lot of money onscreen, and most of it’s very well spent – but isn’t the most tightly-plotted. There are plenty of questions to be talked over at the end (but in a fun way!) but it does qualify for my highest praise these days – it is a yarn. A story that refuses to take the turns you think it’s going to, that doesn’t give easy answers. I’m curious about how it’s landing more broadly, while it has fewer fiddles and shamrocks than other Irish stories (looking at you, McDonagh) the themes are unflinchingly Irish, and very, very funny as a result. If you’ve had a mom, or a daughter, or friends, there are reflections of you in this show, and at the end of it you will be compelled to call someone. And if they don’t answer? Message me! Clearly, I have a lot to say here… but who could blame me?

 

Photo credits: Netflix

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