“Happy Christmas”: Anna Kendrick and Lena Dunham celebrate Yuletide in July — salon.com

It may be a little strange to see a Christmas-themed movie released in the dog days of summer. But the contrast works to the benefit of Joe Swanberg’s low-key but thoroughly winning domestic comedy “Happy Christmas,” which arrives as a blast of cool air from the Chicago winter, and a reminder that American cinema has another register besides giant robots or interspecies warfare. The combat between members of our own species, much of it conducted in apparently contented middle-class homes just below the surface of ordinary life, can provide more than enough drama.

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