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Another Round, 2020
Middle-aged high school teacher Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) is years into a slump, both in his professional life and his personal life. Several of his friends, also teachers at the school, are in a similar place. After one of them jokingly references a theory that the human body is perpetually 0.05% in an alcohol deficit, the men decide to undertake a "scientific experiment" to see what life is like perpetually tipsy. They reverse the usual rules of drinking, maintaining a buzz through the day but not at night or on the weekends. The men see good results, but can they last?
I've loved every film I've seen from Vinterberg, and this one was no exception. He has a way of balancing the personal, intimate space of his characters and capturing the broader space around them that I just adore. Anchored by a stunning performance by Mikkelsen, and this film is an easy winner.
In a bit of interesting timing, I watched Open Hearts just a little while ago--another film in which Mikkelsen plays a man reacting to stagnancy in his life. In that film, the outlet and energizer is a sexual affair with a married woman. Here, it is alcohol. I remember a poster here praising the film for daring to be "politically incorrect," but I'm not sure I get that angle. While on the surface the film might seem to say that functional alcoholism is an a-okay way of life, I think it's pretty apparent that it's a temporary balm for people whose lives are complicated by more than their too-low blood alcohol content. If nothing else, we see that the men are unable to maintain their "ideal" level of tipsiness, drinking more and more and overshooting the 0.05% many times over.
My read on the film, and honestly this is partly informed by the fact that teaching is my profession, is that engagement with the world and people around you takes work. These men have long since ceased wanting to do that work in their professional lives, and apparently are just about done when it comes to their personal lives. I saw the story as fundamentally tragic. You don't have to be buzzed to write an engaging history lesson, but the men in the story come to rely on an external source of sensation--their drinking--instead of trying to find that joy and creativity inside themselves.
I also appreciated that the film showed the impact of the men's drinking on their families. One of the men leaves his wife at home with three very young children, returns home totally hammered, and wets the bed. Another man passes out on his street, injuring himself, only to be found by neighbors who summon the man's son to get him. I'm not saying that functional substance use is impossible, but it's a very tricky balance to strike and often has effects on those who live with and/or care about the individual.
But what the film balances so nicely is what we can see as an outsider (the self-destructive nature of it all, the inevitable loss of control and moderation) and what the men feel. And what do the men feel? Elated. Inspired. They connect with their students. They reconnect with the content they teach. They feel sexy. Youthful. This will kill them, we think, and yet there's no doubt that this is probably the happiest they've been in years.
And while I absolutely do not want to describe it in any way, this film has a closing sequence that is unexpected and stunning and incredibly powerful.
Highly recommended.
Another Round, 2020
Middle-aged high school teacher Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) is years into a slump, both in his professional life and his personal life. Several of his friends, also teachers at the school, are in a similar place. After one of them jokingly references a theory that the human body is perpetually 0.05% in an alcohol deficit, the men decide to undertake a "scientific experiment" to see what life is like perpetually tipsy. They reverse the usual rules of drinking, maintaining a buzz through the day but not at night or on the weekends. The men see good results, but can they last?
I've loved every film I've seen from Vinterberg, and this one was no exception. He has a way of balancing the personal, intimate space of his characters and capturing the broader space around them that I just adore. Anchored by a stunning performance by Mikkelsen, and this film is an easy winner.
In a bit of interesting timing, I watched Open Hearts just a little while ago--another film in which Mikkelsen plays a man reacting to stagnancy in his life. In that film, the outlet and energizer is a sexual affair with a married woman. Here, it is alcohol. I remember a poster here praising the film for daring to be "politically incorrect," but I'm not sure I get that angle. While on the surface the film might seem to say that functional alcoholism is an a-okay way of life, I think it's pretty apparent that it's a temporary balm for people whose lives are complicated by more than their too-low blood alcohol content. If nothing else, we see that the men are unable to maintain their "ideal" level of tipsiness, drinking more and more and overshooting the 0.05% many times over.
My read on the film, and honestly this is partly informed by the fact that teaching is my profession, is that engagement with the world and people around you takes work. These men have long since ceased wanting to do that work in their professional lives, and apparently are just about done when it comes to their personal lives. I saw the story as fundamentally tragic. You don't have to be buzzed to write an engaging history lesson, but the men in the story come to rely on an external source of sensation--their drinking--instead of trying to find that joy and creativity inside themselves.
I also appreciated that the film showed the impact of the men's drinking on their families. One of the men leaves his wife at home with three very young children, returns home totally hammered, and wets the bed. Another man passes out on his street, injuring himself, only to be found by neighbors who summon the man's son to get him. I'm not saying that functional substance use is impossible, but it's a very tricky balance to strike and often has effects on those who live with and/or care about the individual.
But what the film balances so nicely is what we can see as an outsider (the self-destructive nature of it all, the inevitable loss of control and moderation) and what the men feel. And what do the men feel? Elated. Inspired. They connect with their students. They reconnect with the content they teach. They feel sexy. Youthful. This will kill them, we think, and yet there's no doubt that this is probably the happiest they've been in years.
And while I absolutely do not want to describe it in any way, this film has a closing sequence that is unexpected and stunning and incredibly powerful.
Highly recommended.