Another Round

Director: Thomas Vinterberg. Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang 

Watching this Danish film tonight I found myself thinking that maybe one day I should start drinking too… 

Jokes aside “Another Round” is a story about a group of 4 high school teachers who decide to follow the theory of a Norwegian psychologist who claims that humans are born with a 0.05% alcohol content deficit in our blood. And so they embark in a rather reckless and “unusual” experiment where they’ll have to drink just enough to constantly maintain that small percentage of alcohol in their blood to be slightly inebriated and free from inhibitions, releasing their full potentials, but obviously without ending up drunk. No brownie point for guessing where it’s all going to go… 

This was sold to me as a comedy, but it’s definitely not one of those laugh-out-loud film. In fact it’s more of a tragicomedy: a parable about over-drinking, addiction, middle-age crisis, friendship and families.

Beyond the fairly predictable plot there are still plenty of small intimate, very human and rather touching surprises along the way. 

The whole cast is perfect, but Mads Mikkelsen’s performance is absolutely spectacular. Throughout the film he manages to play the “looser”, the depressed, the drunk, the man on the verge of a breakdown but also the amazing teacher we would all love to have… and a lot more.

Hard to believe this was the man playing “Hannibal Lecter” just a few years ago!

And then, that final sequence in the film, which of course I’m not going to spoil, which all of a sudden lifted the film up for me to a 4 star rating and left me with a big smile on my face (I actually laughed out loud at last freeze-frame!)