ANOTHER ROUND : Tuesday 16th March 2021.

'ANOTHER ROUND' which I finally got around to seeing this week following its Australian release on 11th February, is an M Rated Danish comedy drama film Directed and Co-Written by Thomas Vinterberg whose previous film making credits include 'Kursk' in 2018, 'Far from the Madding Crowd' in 2015 and 'The Hunt' in 2012. This film saw its World Premier screening at TIFF back in early September 2020, was released in its native Denmark at the end of that same month, has so far accumulated thirty-five award wins and a further fifty-one nominations from around the awards and festival circuit and has garnered universal critical acclaim. The film has been selected as the Danish entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards, and so far taken just over US$2M at the Box Office off the back of a US$4M production budget.

Teachers, colleagues and long term friends Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), Tommy, Peter and Nikolaj ((Thomas Bo Larsen, Lars Ranthe and Magnus Millang respectively) all work at the same Copenhagen High School for fifteen to nineteen year old students. All four of them have become jaded to say the least and struggle in their tuition of the seemingly unmotivated student cohort, believing that over the years they have become boring and stale in both their professional and personal lives. Martin lives with his wife Anika (Maria Bonnevie) and two teenage sons, but hardly sees or speaks with his wife because she works at night, and he during the daytime, and when he asks her outright if he has become boring, she replies saying that he is not the Martin that she met and fell in love with years ago, before hurriedly rushing out the door to go to work.

One day while at work Martin is told that a delegation of parents and their sons and daughters want to meet with him later that afternoon. Martin teaches modern history and his students feel that his teaching style and the learnings he is trying to convey aren't working, are confusing, and thus failing to register with the largely uninterested class. Something has got to change. One night over dinner to celebrate Nikolaj's 40th birthday, at which an opening bottle of expensive Champagne is first cracked followed by caviar and an equally expensive Vodka, Martin says that he'll stick with mineral water as he has a busy day at school tomorrow and he has still to prepare when he gets home that night. However, Nikolaj starts to discuss the noted Norwegian psychiatrist, psychotherapist, author and Professor Finn Skarderud, who theorises that having a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.05 makes you more creative and relaxed. Martin soon gets into the vodka, and the red wine and opens up to his friends about the situation he was confronted with earlier in the day and the troubles in his marriage. His friends tell him not worry, that he is made of sterner stuff and how everything will work out just fine. 

Initially, the group dismissed the notion of Skarderud's theory but Martin is inspired and the next day takes a bottle of vodka into school, and downs a couple of nips before his morning class. And the end of that day Martin feels he cannot drive home as he would be over the limit and has Nikolaj drive him home instead. En route Martin mentions to his friend that he had several drinks during the course of the day and he feels great as a result, and his students have become more participative. Upon hearing this, Nikolaj calls Peter and Tommy and the four meet. Ultimately they decide to join in, considering the ordeal an experiment to test Skarderud's theory, and write a paper which they will later publish with their test results. They agree to a set of rules, namely that their BAC should never be below 0.05 and that they should not drink after 8:00pm weekdays and not at all at weekends. 

Within a short period of time, all four members of the group find both their work and private lives more enjoyable. Martin's class have become more responsive, more motivated, and more interested in his teachings and he also finally manages to reconnect with his wife and children, taking them on a canoeing trip and camping out in tents at night by the edge of a lake. Such is the success of their experiment, that they all agree it should be taken to the next level and so they increase their daily BAC limit to 0.10. 

With their lives continuing to improve, the group decides to attempt binge drinking to observe how their bodies and minds respond. Initially Martin is reluctant and says that he is done with their experiment while the other three prepare an Absinth based cocktail and start to dance around the room in Nikolaj's house. Preparing to leave, Martin turns and sinks an Absinth cocktail, then another, then something else. The group has a fun filled night, ending up in a bar, with Peter playing the piano almost naked, Martin dancing on the tables, and Tommy stealing two bottles from behind the bar to send them on their way. After coming home totally wasted, both Martin and Nikolaj are confronted by their families early the next morning. Martin's family state their worries that he is descending into alcoholism, revealing that he has been visibly drunk for weeks. After a heated argument, during which Anika admits to an affair, Martin demands the she leaves the house and the pair separate. The group as a consequence abandon the experiment on the basis that it is leading to alcoholism. 

Some months down the track, all the members of the group have stopped drinking during the day except for Tommy, who has become an alcoholic. Martin has reached out to Anika seeking a reconciliation, but she is seemingly not interested. A few days later Tommy arrives at work under the influence and is barely able to stand up or string a sentence together. Martin helps Tommy home that night, puts him to sleep, and cleans up his apartment of empty beer bottles and spent wine bottles and prepares a pasta meal for the both of them. Tommy is grateful but after tells Martin that he and his friends don't need to come around every day and check in on him - he's fine. Tommy boards his boat with his dog, gets frustrated trying to put on a life jacket so discards it and motors out on the ocean. The next time we see the boat bobbing up and down in the harbour later that evening, only the dog is on board whining and there is no sign of Tommy. 

The three remaining members of the group go out to dinner after Tommy's funeral and toast their departed friend with a beer. They ask themselves what Tommy would do under such circumstances, and so they go back to the restaurant where their experiment kicked off several months ago, and order that same Champagne to kick off with. While dining, Martin receives a text message from his wife who states that she misses him and says 'a lot' in a subsequent text and appears willing to give their marriage a second chance. In the meantime the recently graduated students drive by in an open top bus. Martin, Peter and Nikolaj join them in celebrating, dancing and drinking down by the harbour side. 

Martin, who in a previous life trained as a jazz ballet dancer, dances with the rest of the partying students, which he had refused up to this point despite the repeated requests to do so by his colleagues. As his dance moves become more and more frenetic he is last seen diving head first into the harbour, fully clothed.

It is easy to see why 'Another Round' ('Druk' in its native Denmark) has garnered such widespread critical acclaim. On the one hand this tragicomedy speaks to four friends all dealing with a mid-life crisis in their own way but connected through alcohol; it also deals with loss - of a marriage (well almost!), and the death of a close friend; and how a bunch of male friends behave when they come together with a joint goal in mind. On the other hand, it also deals with the excesses of drinking culture on the student age group depicted in this film from the opening scene to the closing sequence; and finally it tells a story of how with every action there must be a reaction, as the lives of these four men (and their students) are changed forever as a result of their drinking experiment. The four principle characters all give top notch performances that are believable, relatable, credible and confronting - especially Mads Mikkelsen who always gives his all with his grounded, nuanced and keeping it real portrayal of a man at a cross-roads in his life. Director and scribe Vinterberg has here crafted a thought provoking film that won't be for everyone (given its at times confronting subject matter), but nonetheless this is an emotional, sobering and heartfelt film that is sure to lift the spirits, and raise a smile without detracting from the ills caused by over consumption. I'll drink to that, cheers!

'Another Round' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-