Joe Swanberg is a filmmaking machine, and for his latest work he’s using a formula similar to last year’s indie hit Drinking Buddies, only this time with more of a holiday theme.

Anna Kendrick stars in Happy Christmas as a twenty-something who has reached a crossroads in her life. Her longterm relationship recently ended, and she now feels compelled to live anywhere other than the place she and he now ex-lover used to share, which leads her to contact her brother (played by Joe Swanberg) in Chicago. A few transitional sequences later, the family is reunited just in time for the holidays, and things quickly go from awkward to complicated.

I want to believe Happy Christmas will find a few ways to bring joy into its story, but from the looks of the first trailer it seems a lot of the characters feel lost in their own lives and that inner confusion will most likely surface at some point in the story, probably around the time everyone else’s emotional baggage begins to fall apart as well. Swanberg loves to capture moments like that, and though there is a season built around the idea of coming together I am willing to wager this one deals a lot with a family doing their best not to fall apart.

Happy Christmas arrives on VOD and iTunes June 26, with a limited theatrical run beginning a day earlier on July 25.

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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