Another Round movie review: Thomas Vinterberg’s intoxicating binge drinking film

Should we really be a little bit drunk all the time? That’s the question at the centre of Mads Mikkelsen’s latest film.

You know that buzzy moment when you’ve had enough to drink that you believe you’re being the sparkliest, most interesting version of yourself?

Then you have one more drink and you’ve tipped into the messy, hazy part of your night. But what if you could live in that threshold moment, when your confidence is soaring and everything you say is witty and erudite? Bottle it so you’re constantly living your best life?

That’s the conceit in Another Round, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s new film starring Mads Mikkelsen about a group of middle-aged teachers who decide to experiment with having a blood-alcohol level of 0.05 per cent during the day.

Would they be better teachers? More inspired and inspiring to their students? Have better relationships with their partners, children and pets?

Mads Mikkelsen in the movie Another Round (2020)

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Martin (Mikkelsen) is sleepwalking through his life, what’s likely to be clinical depression masquerading as a bout of malaise. His history lessons are so unfocused his students and their parents call an intervention of sorts.

During friend and colleague Nikolaj’s (Magnus Millang) birthday dinner, Martin confesses to him, Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) and Peter (Lars Ranthe) that he’s been feeling disconnected from his work and family.

Nikolaj tells the group of Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skarderud’s theory that humans are born with a blood-alcohol level that’s 0.05 per cent too low. So, in the name of research, of course, the four friends outline a plan to maintain that same blood alcohol level while at school.

If some of history’s greatest figures – Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt – can be constantly soused and win wars, then maybe there’s something to it. And like Ernest Hemingway, they will not drink at night or on weekends.

Big night out

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As Vinterberg has proven with his previous work, including the probing The Hunt also starring Mikkelsen, he is incredibly astute when it comes to how humans behave in extraordinary circumstances.

Each of the four main characters are vivid and filled out, but especially Martin in the talented hands of Mikkelsen. This is one of his strongest performances in a career full of them.

What Vinterberg does with Another Round is that this is far from a one-note cautionary tale about the perils of drinking to excess.

It balances its gutting critique of Danish drinking culture with scenes of euphoric imbibing – because losing yourself in drink can be intoxicating in soaring ways, even if the comedown is so punishing.

Mads Mikkelsen previously worked with Thomas Vinterberg on The Hunt

Some of Another Round’s most exhilarating scenes are of Martin and his friends losing themselves in a huge session. Without the big-bellied laughs, the swirling chaos and the dancing, it would’ve been a very different movie, a much more sobering one.

It even evokes our own experiences with the distinct sounds of ice in a cocktail shaker or the glug of wine being poured ringing through the soundtrack, memories flooding back. Is it intentional, and asking us to examine our own relationship with alcohol? Maybe.

Vinterberg layers tonal and thematic complexity throughout Another Round, a movie that was changed by the death of his daughter in the early stages of filming to give it a more life-affirming spin without losing the pathos.

To pull it off is a rare film indeed.

Rating: 3.5/5

Another Round is in cinemas now

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