Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt, The Command) turned heads when he received his first Best Director Academy Award nomination for the little-known but well-received Another Round, the 2020 Best International Feature Film winner. There were some excellent candidates for Best Director in 2015, but Vinterberg wasn’t necessarily in that discussion.
I had this movie at the top of my queue to watch for more than six months before I finally watched it on a recent plane ride. It’s a Denmark movie, and I haven’t been doing great in recent years with subtitled films, especially when watching at home. A long plane ride was the perfect opportunity to focus on my laptop with some headphones on. The movie earned 92% critics and 90% audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes. Those scores were both pretty high. Another Round, while original, was nothing special. It wasn’t so much that it was uninteresting. It just wasn’t memorable at all. It also had numerous things that could have been improved, including plenty of continuity questions. I don’t doubt that there were many international films from 2020 and that this one received much of its acclaim and fanfare because of its director and lead actor.
The best part of this was the always phenomenal Mads Mikkelsen (The Hunt, Arctic). As I became more exposed to his work, I became more interested in his older movies, many of which I had never heard of. After his masterful performance in 2013’s The Hunt, in which he stars as a kindergarten teacher who is forced to continue his life in a community after his world comes crashing in on him when one of his students falsely implies that he carried out an indecent act in front of her, to his role as a man who is forced to decide whether to make camp or embark on a dangerous journey across an unforgiving terrain after a plane crash strands him in Arctic, Mikkelsen’s movies have become a must-watch.
Another Round is the first comedy that I’ve seen him in. It’s not so much a comedy as a dramedy, though it is much lighter in tone than any of his previous movies I’ve seen. The plot of the film is simple. Four high school teachers start a social experiment based on the belief that the human body is born with too low an alcohol level. It is believed that humans are born with a blood alcohol level that is too low and that the ideal BAC is 0.05%. They decide that they will maintain this BAC level from when they wake up until 8 p.m., Monday through Friday, adopting the rule used by Ernest Hemingway. The four men will record their findings, using it as a legitimate justification to drink alcohol while on the job. They’ll be buzzed throughout the day but will not teeter the line of being drunk.
Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), and Peter (Lars Ranthe) are Martin’s (Mikkelsen) colleagues and counterparts in this experiment. Each teaches a different subject. Martin is a history teacher. The other subjects taught are music, physical education, and psychology. It doesn’t matter who teaches what, though we spend a bit of time in each classroom as we watch the mannerisms and such of our supporting characters as they navigate their new perspectives. But this vehicle belongs to Mikkelsen’s Martin. He thrives with the material. Each disgruntled with their lives, it is Martin who is in the most profound depression. He feels distant from his wife, has lost his passion for teaching, and struggles to find joy. The feeling of being constantly buzzed slowly breaks him from his despondency. He teaches with vigor. His students notice his new and innovative ways of presenting the material and begin to enjoy their time in his class much more. Life at home improves as well.
However, we need some rising action with this movie. We want to see more than four middle-aged men who become better teachers and more content with their lives. This might make for an otherwise dull film. So Martin and company decided to take the experiment to a new level by pushing the envelope. If 0.05% makes them feel better in their lives, what would a higher blood alcohol level do? So that’s what they do; this is where the movie takes the expected turn. It’s predictable, but seeing how it affects each character differently is still enjoyable.
As mentioned, the film had some continuity issues. I struggled with knowing the timeframe from when the experiment started to when it ended. It likely was 3-4 months, but it could have been closer to an entire school year or, perhaps, as short as a month or two. But even if that’s the case, there are still a lot of assumptions and a lot of questions. I would have preferred a concrete timeline. I felt it was necessary to understand the progression of the character’s feelings and how it changed them.
Overall, Another Round was a decent movie. While I didn’t see every International film from 2020, there were more impactful and thought-provoking ones. This was a simple movie. While I’m glad I finally watched it, it did not offer much more than I expected. It had Mads, though. Anything that has Mads is worth a chance.
Plot 8/10
Character Development 7.5/10
Character Chemistry 6.5/10
Acting 7.5/10
Screenplay 7/10
Directing 8/10
Cinematography 8.5/10 – It’s pretty cool how an unsteady camera shakes a bit as the characters get buzzed and start to stagger some.
Sound 7/10
Hook and Reel 7.5/10
Universal Relevance 7.5/10
77%
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