Alcohol takes on different shapes throughout our lives. When you’re a child, it’s a mystic and forbidden signifier of adulthood. When you’re coming of age, it’s a bitterly effective inlet to your best and worst moments. But somewhere along these lines, as we amass boozy, immodest, and irrevocably honest souvenirs of our former selves, our rationales for drinking become muddied. These metamorphic properties of alcohol aren’t lost on Thomas Vinterberg, whose latest film, Another Round, probes and explicates the psychological toll liquor can bear on us.
What begins as dinner table banter quickly devolves into something much more turbulent when four high school teachers—Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), Tommy (Thomas Bo Larson), Peter (Lars Ranthe), and Nikolaj (Magnus Millang)—celebrate Nikolaj’s 40th birthday at a fussy restaurant. Martin, who has clearly spent years navigating his life with a frightening passivity, has checked out of the conversation entirely. As a haughty waiter details the mineral notes in Peter’s champagne and the velvety texture of some wheat-cured vodka, Martin stares dejectedly at his glass of soda water, realizing that he’s become just as inconsequential as he feels. So he orders a drink.
THE SKÅRDERUD HYPOTHESIS
Somewhere between entrées and dancing drunkenly for onlookers, the four are drawn into a philosophical debate about Finn Skårderud, a Norwegian psychiatrist who posited that humans are born with a blood alcohol level that is .05% too low. To him, that discrepancy can (and should) be remedied so as to live a more open, “musical” lifestyle. All nearing middle age and subsequently juggling the drawbacks of careers, marriages, and children, they gradually adopt Skårderud’s philosophy into their everyday lives. For research purposes, of course.
The four decide to, as Ernest Hemingway did, drink only during work hours, but unlike the elusive novelist, they would stop once a breathalyzer measured 0.05%. They broach this theory with scientific precision, calling it a “study of social and professional performance”; one that allows them to simulate scholars, not drunks. But their invocation of Hemingway, who took his own life before his sixty-second birthday, should have been enough to deter them from pursuing this risky scheme (it wasn’t). Another Round then hurls itself towards its more unnerving territory with so much calculated verve, you can’t help but have faith in its trajectory.
FOR WHOM THE (SCHOOL) BELL TOLLS
Drinking in secret at school—as an educator, no less— is about as fallible a plan as one would imagine. But before their ropey experiment can misfire, we’re gifted a handful of tipsy teaching sequences, where the men passionately lead their lessons with a newfound investment in the teens seated in front of them. In abandoning the stringency of curricula, they assume charismatic, human exteriors for their students to learn from, laugh with, and believe in. Outside of these more jovial scenes, however, lie moments that noticeably lag and others that feel too short-lived to celebrate. While this unpolished pacing can feel tiresome, it also convincingly upholds the film’s chaotic ethos.
Even with all its hijinks, Another Round is a quietly powerful film that has no desire to influence you one way or another. It doesn’t attempt to sway you with striking imagery or distract you from its internal ugliness. Instead, the erratic pacing and naturalistic camerawork allow for the film to privilege its players over its style. Delivering a performance that is on par with, if not eclipsing, his previous collaboration with Vinterberg in The Hunt, Mikkelsen’s distinctive stoicism and underdog sensibility tie this story together well. Larson, Ranthe, and Millang imbue much-needed doses of levity throughout, putting the “comedy” in “tragicomedy”.
CONCLUSION: GREY GOOSE & GREY AREAS
Another Round casts alcoholism, dependency, and self-sabotage in an unusually tame light, one that lets these themes occupy a grey area. The film certainly doesn’t endorse its every faux pas, but it also doesn’t always condemn them. Sometimes there is more wisdom in admitting you don’t know the answer to something than in assuming that you do. There’s a noteworthy scene where Peter encourages a distressed student to take a few spirited swigs before and during his exam. Having calmed his nerves, the boy passes with flying colours—thanks to a few ounces of Smirnoff and a teacher’s highly questionable code of ethics.
But as Mikkelsen said himself, Another Round has no intention of being “moral” or seeking out tangible answers to its theoretical problems. These drunken antics make for a much more sobering truth that many storytellers would (and do) avoid entirely: that we may never actually be our best selves without the help of some substance, some chemical rebalance that slurs our speech and heavies our bodies. That our true desires remain unattainable until we forcibly break down those inhibitions. The ending is happy until it’s not; or it’s devastating until it’s uplifting. Only in these ugly, catatonic moments can our frail humanity shine through, for better or for worse. In Vinterberg’s case, for better.
What do you think? Does Another Round sound like another success for director Thomas Vinterberg and star Mads Mikkelsen? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Another Round premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Watch Another Round
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