How To Get To Heaven From Belfast Reviews: Critics Hail 'Hilarious' Series
The creator of Derry Girls, Lisa McGee, has a new show to cure your February blues.
Amid the never-ending rain in the UK, Netflix has released How To Get To Heaven From Belfast, a new comedy crime caper starring Irish actors Roisin Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan, and Caoilfhionn Dunne as three childhood friends with a huge skeleton in their closet.
The trio of childhood friends is summoned to the eerie fictional village of Knockdara in County Donegal after they learn about the death of their estranged friend, and soon discover that there is more to the situation than meets the eye. This starts the women on an eccentric odyssey through rural Ireland, and their past.
Critics are in love with this new crime drama, praising the balance of thrills and comedy. and highlighting the performances from the ensemble cast, which also includes Ardal O’Hanlon, Emmett J. Scanlan and Derry Girls’ Saoirse-Monica Jackson.
Here’s a selection of what the critics are saying about How To Get To Heaven From Belfast so far…
The Guardian (4/5)
“It’s all written with McGee’s customary wit, brutality and sensitivity. The actors (including the young ones who portray the teenage versions of the adult protagonists) keep the whole thing together and emotionally credible, though the preposterousness of the plot increases at a roughly geometric rate – as questions of conscience (‘She’s having an attack of the Catholics’), loyalty and what is owed to whom begin to show through the chaos and the laughs.
“Buckle up, and enjoy.”
The Independent (4/5)
“How To Get To Heaven From Belfast is hard to categorise, but the word ‘caper’ feels like a good start.
“Tonally, it veers from dark comedy to kitsch adventure to action thriller; it occupies a world that is at once entirely recognisable (the three women’s shifting relationship dynamics, and the demands placed on them by the outside world, are particularly well observed) and totally surreal, crammed with odd side characters.”
Mashable
“How To Get To Heaven From Belfast is as much a classic mystery as it is a uniquely Lisa McGee-penned celebration of girlhood and adulthood, of lifelong friendship and repressed trauma, edited memories, and the connection to home many of us end up running from.
“It’s hilarious, haunting, and heavenly in every way.”
The Standard(4/5)
“If the plot doesn’t entirely make sense (or the geography: Saoirse seems to be hopping between London and Belfast like it’s a stop on the Northern line), that’s forgivable.
“It’s a more complicated – dare I say, adult – show than Derry Girls, but McGee’s writing masterfully manages to toe the line between serious and silly. Watch and feel the February blues melt away.”
The Telegraph
“Horror and farce sit side by side, with ghostly goings-on and Blair Witch-style creepiness one minute, pure daftness the next. In another Derry Girls touch, the soundtrack whips us back in time.”
Digital Spy (4/5)
“The eight-part drama is so distinctive and genre-bending that it throws you off-kilter to begin with. Like that oil and water, it takes some time to settle – but trust us, stick with it, because when you stop trying to put it in a box, and instead just take it for what it is, it’s really rather brilliant.”
Metro
“The chemistry between the core cast is electric, and it’s completely believable that they’ve been close for years. The friends bicker, make personal digs and have minor fallouts, but always come back together – a truly touching nod to long-term friendships that are sometimes just as strong as familial bonds.”
The Hollywood Reporter
“Some of the richness in How To Get To Heaven From Belfast can get lost in the intentional chaos and misdirection. But when the cast is this exceptional and the dialogue has this much manic crackle, whatever you take from the series ought to be enough.”
The Herald (4/5)
“How To Get To Heaven is not without its flaws, mind. Like many Netflix productions, the story is stretched too thin. With eight 45-minute episodes to fill, McGee tries to compensate by cramming in more action, but there’s only so much wackiness a tale can bear.
“Still, the frenetic pace gives the piece an endearing Carl Hiaasen vibe. Also on the debit side, the story has holes big enough to drive a furniture van through.”
Variety
“Derry Girls” mined comic gold from the ordinary lives led amid geopolitical turmoil; “Belfast” carries that tradition forward into its aftermath, tinged with the hindsight and regrets of adulthood.”
Techradar
“The critical eye in me has to really pick this apart... yes, it could have been easily condensed into six episodes and I’m not too sure how much I love one of the most significant subplots. But for the most part, I’m breathing a sigh of relief that great Irish telly is back once again (and this is possibly the most Irish show I’ve ever seen).”
The Times
“Behind the slapstick, this is a serious exploration of female friendship and the devastating ripple effects of trauma. It’s about trauma experienced by a single character, but as we’re treated to vista after vista of haunting Irish scenery, it becomes clear that How To Get To Heaven From Belfast, like Derry Girls before it, is deeply interested in the trauma suffered by the whole nation.”
The Financial Times
“How To Get To Heaven From Belfast begins to run out of steam as it ploughs towards an ending, a little exhausted, and the fastenings start to come loose. But thanks to the charm of its leads, the wit of the script and the spirit of adventure, it is a highly entertaining ride.”
The Irish Times
“The vibe is Father Ted trying to be Inspector Morse – and while McGee’s talent for hilarious dialogue remains unparalleled, it sits uneasily alongside a storyline about intergenerational abuse and the writing out of history of Irish female suffering.”
NME (2/5)
“With a plot yo-yo’ing back and forth in time, all cut to an early aughts soundtrack as the characters’ younger selves intrude upon their psyches, so begins an increasingly exasperating drama that never quite knows what it wants to be.
“The White Lotus, Bad Sisters and, of course, Derry Girls all feel like templates reworked (or rehashed) here.”
All episodes of How To Get To Heaven From Belfast are available to stream on Netflix now.