Mads Mikkelsen stars as a teacher who has lost his drive, he decides to partake in an alcoholic experiment to improve his life.
The Danish film that took this year’s Oscars by storm, with Vinterberg being nominated for best director and the film walking away with best international feature. It really is an enjoyable treat; a tragicomedy that is side splittingly funny and perfectly covers the pitfalls of middle age. It also has that man Mads Mikkelsen at the helm again, a man who is very quickly becoming a huge favourite of mine.
Mikkelsen stars as Martin, a passionless history teacher who is unfulfilled with his work and his home life, putting a major strain on both. Along with three of his colleagues, they decide to embark on an experiment that involves them drinking… a lot. The goal? To examine whether they can excel academically, intellectually, and romantically. Surely there can only be one outcome to this, but you can have a lot of fun on the way.
Thomas Vinterberg, the mastermind behind The Hunt has again excelled at showing another aspect of Danish culture; the drinking culture more specifically, which I am told is a very popular pass time over there – I may have to take another trip to Denmark soon. These four men love to binge drink, it creates a lot of laughs for us and a lot of heavy hangovers for them. It was a genuinely funny film, the dialogue throughout was fantastic and just elevated certain scenes to lofty heights.
The fundamentals of the film are about depression and this feeling of being lost, how a lack of drive and vision can slowly swallow you up and leave you stewing in your own personal regret – a truly horrible place to be. What begins with a subtle (slightly subtle anyway) passion for drinking, rapidly turns into alcoholism, but is sugar coated to seem like normality. They hide behind the laughs and the camaraderie, a literal representation of “Dutch courage” if I have ever seen one.
Another Round begins with Martin (Mikkelsen), a history teacher who is feeling depressed, lonely, and unfulfilled, he has lost his passion for his work and his marriage – not exactly going through a good patch at the minute. He partakes in regular drinking sessions with his friends and fellow colleagues, this motley crew consists of: Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) a P.E. teacher, Peter (Lars Ranthe) the resident music teacher who is beginning to despise his unfulfilling role, and Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), a psychology teacher who has a family of his own with a very controlling wife, the joys of which we know only too well.
After a heavy drinking session, the quartet decide to start an experiment where they never let their alcohol blood levels drop below 0.05%, to see if they can reach their optimum levels of performance. Nikolaj read it in a psychology book by Finn Skårderud, so it must work if it was found in a book.
All four men being to develop and express themselves in exciting new ways: finding passion for their subjects once again and even spicing up their sex life as well. It is a classic case of alcohol giving you a false sense of security, we all think we’re unbeatable after a drink, it will soon come crashing down. They begin to play with fire, flying too close to the sun as it were, increasing their alcohol dosage which is the start of their unfortunate downfall.
There is a particularly great scene where they begin to mix their drinks (a silly idea that seems like a great idea), with the great Cissy Strut playing in the background (of Jackie Brown fame) is reminiscent of a stoner comedy scene or a drug induced hallucination scene like Pineapple Express or Easy Rider, it played out brilliantly.
The drinking begins to get the better of them – as it will always do – once again affecting their home life and their work, being outed by their loved ones is the wake-up call they needed. The experiment worked for the most, but it became too much of a strain for it to ever continue, and for some, it was far too late. Reminiscent of Hemingway, who they aspired to be like throughout their trial by fire.
This film really is a blast, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was funny, consisting of that real dark Danish humour that you learn to love. You relate to the characters because they are just normal guys who like a drink, and look to spice their lives up by combining the two, who hasn’t thought about this experiment before? The acting is superb as expected; they were all able to divulge their acting prowess (especially Mikkelsen once again) and have fun with it. All four men were brilliant at playing drunk men, and the false confidence that comes with it, they are obviously all naturals.
There were some powerful messages beneath that humorous cloak as well, about coming to terms with your problems and trying to enjoy life, instead of hiding behind a bottle of A grade vodka. It really is a film of the highest quality; thought provoking and light-hearted at times, even with the cringey ending (Mikkelsen dancing to a musical number out of the blue, yes you heard that right), it is no surprise that it achieved so much success at awards nights this year.
Another Round is still available to watch in certain cinemas and is soon to come out on Amazon Prime soon.
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