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Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg has long been one of the country's most influential and respected directors. Along with Lars von Trier, he penned the Dogme 95 manifesto, a pledge to create naturalistic films focused on story and acting without special effects or technology (or even cinematic lighting). His 1998 film "The Celebration" was Denmark's selection for the Academy Awards, as well as his 2012 film "The Hunt," which was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film. His latest film, "Another Round" has also been chosen to represent Denmark as their Oscar selection. Co-written with frequent collaborator Tobias Lindholm, "Another Round" reunites Vinterberg with his "The Hunt" star Mads Mikkelsen, who again plays a teacher, but the stakes are high in a different way this time.
As one might guess from the title (the Danish title is simple "Druk," which means "binge drinking"), this is a movie about tossing one back, boozing with friends, and the perils, pitfalls and pure ecstasy to be found in this age-old pursuit.
Mikkelsen is Martin, a high school history teacher, distracted and ineffective, trudging through the motions of his middle class, middle-aged life. But he's hollowed out, a shell of a man disconnected from himself and those around him. Martin is a reserved man, who chooses sparkling water at 40th birthday celebration with his buds, a couple of other teachers at the school who are similarly adrift in midlife ennui.
Dinner conversation over vodka and wine pairings leads to the discussion of a curious theory attributed to the Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skarderud, who suggests that humans are born with a 0.05% alcohol deficit. One way to tap into feeling more joy, more connection, more alive, is to maintain a steady buzz throughout the day, the men theorize. This is all the encouragement Martin needs to down several glasses of expensive hooch, and after a night of drunken antics, the men set about justifying their experiment with a "proper" scientific study and accompanying paper. They treat it as a kind of "lifehack," an "optimal living" cure-all, in the same way folks talk about fasting, or meditation.
The premise almost sounds like a broad Hollywood bro-comedy, and there are moments of fraternal hilarity, such as an absurd sequence where the quartet attempts to grocery shop after many, many cocktails. But "Another Round" is carefully and delicately wrought, the humor authentic and incidental, rippling with pathos and longing, carefully walking the line between drunken fun and the dark threat of alcoholism that looms.
In a restrained performance, Mikkelsen, who has the face of another, ancient era, placid yet tortured, beautifully conveys Martin's inner emotional turmoil, and his subsequent liberation through drink, becoming the kind of husband, father, teacher and friend he wants and needs to be with his inhibitions chemically lowered. But it's a dangerous game. Though lowered inhibitions may lead to more successful interpersonal interactions, they also erode the willpower to resist tipping over right into oblivion.
While "Another Round" inspects the varying effects of alcohol on daily life, it's far from clinical. Waves of ebullience, love, humor and sorrow crash on top of each other, as anyone who's ever been overserved can attest to. It isn't prescriptive about drinking, and doesn't seek to impart any message other than that life is hard, and sometimes dark, and sometimes ecstatically beautiful. Alcohol can unlock freedom, joy and playfulness, but it can also easily be destructive and fatal, which is never far from reality in "Another Round." The true lifehack? Learning to access that joie de vivre all on your own.
