The set-up for “Another Round” feels like it’s lifted from a punchline of a very good joke. Four friends, all teachers at a provincial institute in Denmark, decide to embark on a philosophical experiment buttressed by alcohol. Each of the four seems bored by a life of relentless banality, so when one of them unearths an idea spurred from the writings of the somewhat obscure philosopher Finn Skårderud – a plan is made. According to Skårderud, humans have a blood alcohol that’s too low. So, to ensure they all lift themselves out from the ennui of their lives, they will drink progressively through the day to recapture the vibrancy of laugh. It does not take a clairvoyant to predict where and how this will go.
Knowing that this experiment is going to end badly immediately sets “Another Round” as a tale of how rather than what. There’s no version of events where four teachers, working with children, are going to sustain a state of constant inebriation. So, freed from the question of how this will end, “Another Round” at first projects a potentially engaging presentation of the psychology of these four men. But, the more the film goes on, the more “Another Round” feels generic rather than specific or incisive. In an early scene, as the quartet map their plan one of the men mentions Ernest Hemingway. According to that famed alcoholic, once you stop drinking by 8pm your body gets a chance to regulate to a life of constant alcohol. The anecdote is presented with the least bit of irony contextualising Hemingway’s tragic fate with alcohol. It’s the first moment that “Another Round” presents its own issues with perspective. Either this learned academic is being deliberately obtuse holding Hemingway up as a beacon of good drinking, or the film reveals its own ambivalence in setting up this experiment as anything more than foolish.
Director Thomas Vinterberg’s oeuvre is notable for his ambivalent presentations of restlessness in Denmark and Europe. His films tend to evoke a sense of being decisively unmannered, and deliberately reserved in their perspective, even if their themes threaten to dig beneath the surface. But the technique feels like a mismatch here. Scene after scene, the camera impassively observes these men creating scenarios where you could read into their actions but deliberately opaque about the implications of stakes of anything that they do. By the halfway point, the experiment has already proven itself to be compromised, leaving the film with nowhere to go as we watch a beautifully shot but strangely low-stakes engagement with making bad decisions.
The film’s script is compelling for not descending into a slapstick version of events where boozy delights are presented as a chance for a raunchy comedy. But I wonder if Vinterberg’s script (co-written with Tobias Lindholm) may not have benefitted from something less polite and refined. There’s a tragedy that occurs in the final act where the film briefly considers its stakes, and then soon seems to abandon any sense of emotional nakedness. It’s a good example of the way Vinterberg seems to avoid anything resembling messiness or spontaneity in “Another Round”. There’s something to be considered about the way the film’s own aesthetic seem tightly bound to Mads Mikkelsen’s bored Martin, who seems to be sleepwalking through life. Mikkelsen gives a good performance as a man clinging to anything to find the spark in his life, but “Another Round” feels skittish about digging beneath the surface of Martin and his friends. The cast is roundly committed – Magnus Millang in particular is a delight to watch as a harried new father. But, the tidiness of “Another Round” begins to feel like a betrayal of its own ideals the more it continues.
In the opening sequence of the film, we watch a group of students get increasingly drunk and rowdy as they partake in a celebratory event on campus. The scene, in theory, sets up the momentum for the film, offering the scene of the chaos but excitement of drunkenness that is so seductive. The opening sequence has a clear idea of what the film sets out to do – examine how drinking is so inherent to Danish culture, and the implications of that. But nothing comes after in “Another Round” that feels committed to that sort of analysis. It’s a pleasant and easy watch which in a way gets to the film’s ultimate issue. It feels perverse that a film about watching a group of men become increasingly dependent on alcohol as a way to get through the day feels so noncommittal.
Another Round played as a Special Presentation at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.
