Another Round review – drinking drama earns its Oscar
A lot of films make it to our screens thanks to an interesting concept – what if there was a theme park that brought back dinosaurs, what if a man’s whole life was a 24-hour TV show, what if you could invade someone’s dreams? The idea behind Danish drama Another Round is slightly less ambitious, as it asks whether being a slightly tipsy 24 hours a day would actually benefit us. However, from that seemingly frivolous place it goes somewhere quite profound.
Mads Mikkelsen stars as Martin, a middle-aged school teacher who is stuck in a rut. He struggles to inspire his students, his marriage is on the rocks, and he battles chronic depression. His colleagues, Tommy, Peter, and Nikolaj (Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars Ranthe, Magnus Millang), are in similar positions in their lives. During Nikolaj’s 40th birthday celebrations, the group discuss a psychological theory that having a constant Blood Alcohol Level of 0.05 enhances your mood and creativity. Intrigued, the group start to experiment with the idea, keeping themselves at that level at work, and never drinking past 8pm. While positive changes initially appear, dependency soon rears its head.
Films based around an interesting idea often face the same problem: how do you move on from that? Too often, the idea is all that’s holding the film together, but director Thomas Vinterberg (Festen, The Hunt) digs much deeper. In some ways, drinking is a very small part of this story, as we follow men in the tragicomic throes of midlife crisis. We see how the drinking initially wakes them up from this fog of desperation, and how quickly it all begins to fall apart. Like a good night out, we’re with them for the highs and lows.
While Vinterberg takes them all seriously, time is devoted to the folly of their experiment, and the partners that shoulder the day-to-day responsibilities while they ponder their existence. The women in their lives look on befuddled, particularly Maria Bonnevie as Martin’s wife Anika, who has slowly drifted from him over the years. The most heart-breaking scenes come between those characters, as they bring forth the quiet pain they have carried over the course of a marriage.
As well as being the most recognisable name to audiences, Mikkelsen is by far the standout performer. Despite still looking like he stepped out of the pages of a fashion shoot, there’s a humility to his performance that allows you to empathise with where Martin finds himself. He and his castmates also nail the chaotic pleasures of being drunk – the wobbly liberation and confidence, but also the shivering regret when it goes too far.
While it can wander in the third act, Another Round more than earns its recent BAFTA and Oscar wins. The biggest downside is the knowledge that this will eventually be remade by Hollywood as a bawdy Vince Vaughn comedy that misses this film’s nuanced points.
Another Round is in cinemas from 2 July.