1 day ago
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February 12, 2026 — 7:00pm
How to Get to Heaven from Belfast ★★★½
Comic thrillers are tough to pull off. Too many laughs and the risk isn’t plausible. Too serious and the gags start to feel out of place. For the most part, Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee strikes an entertaining balance in her attempt. The tale of three female best friends forced to revisit their teenage secret, How to Get to Heaven from Belfast has a dry wit, panicked energy, and a sturdy mystery. Everything is up for grabs, except the unbreakable bond between the trio.
Reunited by the news that the Belfast high school pal they’d lost touch with, Greta, has suddenly died, Saoirse (Roisin Gallagher), Robyn (Sinead Keenan), and Dara (Caoilfhionn Dunne), are soon trashing a rental car and each other as they head to a wake in rural Northern Ireland. Saoirse, a screenwriter, has been living in London, so she gets extra mockery. The macabre and the daft interweave, especially once they confirm that the body being buried is not Greta. It’s time to go full Jessica Fletcher.
McGee already has all the accolades for Netflix’s Derry Girls, with the 1990s-set teen sitcom’s DNA laced throughout How to Get to Heaven from Belfast. The protagonists may be 38 years old instead of 16, but the accents, remonstrative banter, and language are familiar – you get plenty of “grand”, “class” and “mammy”. As different as their paths have been – spitfire Robyn has too many children, eccentric Dara is still at home with her mother – the adult trio are tied together, especially because of “that night”.
The outline of McGee’s plot looks familiar, complete with high school flashbacks, including Greta, to “that night”, but McGee messes with it in fascinating ways. Early on, having checked in at the tiny town of Knockdara’s eccentric hotel, the trio discovers a 2000s retro club night. They down shots and the expected dance montage kicks off, but halfway through the outrageous moves slow and each woman warily watches as her younger self keeps dancing. The otherworldly regularly intrudes, often to good effect, and McGee isn’t afraid to smash genres together.
The downside to her well-earnt freedom is that eight episodes feels slightly drawn out, even as the supporting cast offers up a memorable mix of menace and eccentrics – “Rome’s encouraging us to examine our work-life balance,” a Catholic priest tells Dara when she misses confession and he won’t extend the hours. The three leads are terrific together, capturing the dynamic of friends who know each other too well. They have a debt to the past, but perhaps solving a mystery with your besties is also a welcome escape from the everyday. Either way, the show is class.
How to Get to Heaven from Belfast is now streaming on Netflix.
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