Review: Another Round
On the surface, the premise of Another Round seems like an absurd vehicle for another story about a middle-age man’s mid-life crisis, but director Thomas Vinterberg and lead Mads Mikkelsen are able to circumvent many of the common tropes in similar movies by making it a multi-faceted film about male friendship and the complex relationship people have with alcohol.
The movie follows Martin, a schoolteacher coasting through life, struggling to find any fulfillment in the things that used to give him some measure of joy - his job, his marriage, his relationships. They all seem to make up a fog that he’s stumbling through from one day to the next. His co-workers and friends, also schoolteachers, are battling much of the same mid-life struggles.
The story takes an interesting turn when one of the friends makes a proposition to the group that he has stumbled upon a psychiatrists’ theory that one’s life can be significantly improved by a higher, controlled alcohol level on a daily basis. Each of them dismisses the idea at first, but they slowly come around and decide to experiment and “document” their findings.
What starts as a fun and seemingly effective secret they share, turns messy. Vinterberg is able to approach the characters without judgement and instill a warmness in the four men and their relationship to each other.
This Danish film, currently the frontrunner for best foreign language film, is both a celebration and criticism of the role that alcohol can play in our lives. Your mileage may vary on whether or not you think the film was able to hold this tension well, but with a stunning performance from Mikkelsen (with a rather impressive flourish in the closing scene) and a warmly intimate portrait of four friends trying to kick start their passion for life, it’s hard to walk away from this film feeling like it didn’t have anything to offer.