“Wine is a grand thing. … It makes you forget all the bad,” wrote Hemingway in his revered novel A Farewell to Arms. In Another Round, the latest feature from Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration, Far From the Madding Crowd), the author is brought up a lot, as four male high school teachers take part in a theory that their character and lives will be improved if they keep their blood alcohol level at 0.05% all day long.
These four friends include Peter (Ranthe), Nikolaj (Millang), Tommy (Bo Larsen), and Another Round’s hot ticket, Martin (Mikkelsen). In a similar vein to other great midlife crisis films that center around alcohol, such as Sideways, Vinterberg’s film finds all these men stuck in the malaise of their mundane lives, turning 40 without hurrah. And while this all sounds like territory that’s been trotted before, Another Round is grounded by how Sturla Brandth Grøvlen’s cinematography captures brutally perfect performances (especially from leading man Mikkelsen) and by a brilliantly celebratory ending that feels as dark as it is bright.
Another Round is cut into three parts, steadily upping the stakes as it goes. In the first, the four men start their mornings by drinking, maintaining a steady 0.05% throughout the workday. They are more poised, open, and musical. They teach with jovial excitement and inspire their formerly disconnected high school students. Martin, dreary in the beginning, glows. He’s alive, rejuvenated with a charming warmth that’s endearing and playful. This leads the men to part two, where they push their daily limits, skimming along the 0.1% line.
It’s here that Vinterberg takes a break from the quartet, splicing in footage of political figures who are either drinking or likely drunk, red faces giggling and eyes glazed over (mostly European figureheads, but also one very bashful Bill Clinton). These real-life examples show just how incredible the performances are here – particularly Mikkelsen, whose body language becomes more loose and clumsy as he dances into work, spiked coffee mug in hand. Where he was alive, now he’s impulsive, giddy with his secret superpower fuel. This impulse leads the men to part three, which is disastrous and loony and leads to unreliability and loss.
As many of us know, drinking doesn’t solve problems — it’s a relief that enhances them. However, Vinterberg’s film is never an indictment of alcohol. Anika (Bonnevie) screams at Martin that the alcohol is not her problem with him, because everyone in Denmark drinks way too much anyway (and she even orders a glass of wine in front of Martin, thus cementing her point). The problem between Anika and Martin is the problem they had from the beginning: He is a shell of who he once was, lost in his own middle-aged melancholy. The problem is not the substance, it’s the person, and with Another Round, Vinterberg has crafted a beautiful dissection of that conundrum.
Another Round is available now as a virtual cinema release.
This article appears in December 11 • 2020.