Ivan Sariev: “Another Round” - the recipe to be happier from Thomas Vinterberg

“Another Round” (2020) is the latest film by Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg, starring Mads Mikkelsen. The film won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards.

Ivan Sariev, film critic

Both have previously collaborated on “the Hunt” (2012), which earned a nomination at the 86th Academy Awards. Vinterberg dedicates “Another Round” to his daughter, Ida, who passed away 4 days after the shooting of the movie began. He states that the movie started out as "a celebration of alcohol based on the thesis that world history would have been different without alcohol", but it was reworked to be more life affirming.

The premise is about 4 high school teachers who are having a mid-life crisis. They are not enjoying their work as teachers, and are having issues in their private lives, from marriage troubles to loneliness. One of them, a psychology teacher, brings up a theory from a known psychiatrist that having 0.05 blood alcohol content helps in life. The history teacher Martin, played by Mads Mikkelsen, is showing signs of depression, decides to try it and spends a day at work as a teacher being slightly drunk. During one of the classes, he is more relaxed and happier to teach his students. The others notice it and join him. They frame the act as an experiment to prove the theory by putting rules on when and how much to drink. And so, they set out to drink during work in order to get enjoyment out of it.

The movie's realism is what I found most enjoyable about it. The plot sounds absurd on its surface, being about 4 teachers drinking at work, but it is presented as something that can happen in real life. The psychiatrist, Finn Skårderud, really did suggest the theory we are happy with 0.05% blood alcohol level due to humans being born with a deficit. Vinterberg got the idea for the movie from his daughter telling him about the drinking culture in Denmark. So, the building blocks on what the story is based are from reality, which helps with the believability about what happens on screen.

What adds to the realism is how the teachers use that theory as a justification for their binge drinking. When they see that their happiness for life has increased, they of course increase the alcohol level in line with testing the theory even further. They talk about historical figures like Churchill and Hemingway as examples of alcoholics that managed to be productive members of society. However, the 4 talking about them is not framed to be in relation to what they are experimenting. It only acts as an excuse for them to drink alcohol.

Thomas Vinterberg

The acting of the 4 main actors as they pretend to be drunk on camera is amazing. During the different phases of their alcoholism the way they talk as their manner of speech and body language change in realistic way. Mikkelsen talked that during production the 4 actors would meet and drink alcohol together and watch videos of drunk Russians to understand better how people act while intoxicated. And it shows in their performance and chemistry on film how that helped. The actors portray the actors in a sympathetic way. Yes, they are drinking alcohol at work, but you understand what lead to them to do that.

Mads Mikkelsen’s acting as the history teacher was a highlight of the movie for me. The screenplay by Vinterberg and Tobias Lindholm allows him to shine and show how versatile of an actor he is. Scenes I will highlight is when he has his classes while he is half drunk. The way he manages to interact with the actors portraying his students to create a realistic atmosphere of a class is nothing short of perfect. He deserved the nominations and awards he got for this role. The final scene of the movie, which I will not spoil, to me shows that this role was made for him.

The cinematography works together with the acting to help sell the feeling that we are watching 4 people get drunk. Cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen is trying to recreate the feeling when we are tipsy. The camera is handheld and is always unsteady. So, it has a slight wobble as it moves in a school corridor or panning from one character to another. The viewer through the camera’s lens is losing balance and the vision goes at times blurry, as though they are tipsy.

The film is not without its flaws. In the third act it feels as though the movie is trying to wrap up everything quickly, so it dedicates less time on a couple of the plot threads. The way one of them resolves came out as having sloppy execution. And it is not like the movie would have suffered if it were slightly longer. The pace through most of it is perfect. The movie does not feel slow and does not drag in any scene for too long. So, I did not understand the choice of not dedicating more time to those threads.

Mads Mikkelsen

Another flaw I have is that there is a short montage of politicians who are consuming or have consumed alcohol. This montage does not seem to serve any purpose in the story beyond just stating how alcohol is prevalent in life and politicians drink it. But this is something stated in other scenes with more examples not politicians, so the montage feels unnecessary in the final product, since it does not add anything to it and there is nothing more said specifically about politicians and them consuming alcohol. It feels like something that was left from the original idea of the film. They could have removed it and then add another scene in its place to help with the resolution of my previous issue with the plot threads.

The movie is a balance between comedy and tragedy. After the characters start drinking there is a discovery of happiness in their life. So according to them, the most logical thing to do is to binge drink more and continue the experiment. But just because alcohol can be bringing joy in the present, we should not forget there is a morning hangover waiting. The characters though are oblivious to that and keep on binging. This allows the movie to escape being a standard comedy about adults drinking alcohol and becomes as a tragicomedy.

The ability to blend comedy and tragedy is something Vinterberg has shown in his film “Festen” (1998), which with “the Idiots” (1998) by Lars von Trier started a movement called “Dogme 95”. With it, Vinterberg and von Trier have the idea for cinema to return to its roots and formalizing this idea by giving 10 rules that a director must follow. One of these rules was to avoid “genre movies” or in other words to not have a movie be thematically defined by its genre. “Dogme 95” is an attempt for the director to hold the most power in a movie and not a studio.

With this Vinterberg manages to bring his experience from his previous works in crafting this great film. The film is about alcohol drinking, testing a theory, the wish to find happiness, and an affirmation of life. It manages to avoid sounding like a PSA about alcohol consumption and its repercussions. This allows Vinterberg to focus on the reality and people affected by that culture. /BGNES

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Ivan Sariev, film critic