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I feel it is important to preface the following review with one simple, essential thing you need to know about me: I would watch Mads Mikkelsen play just about anything. A sinister gambler with tears of blood? Sure. A homoerotic serial killer in a tailor-made suit? Of course! A history teacher who turns to the bottle when he fears that his life has passed him by? It breaks from the theme a tad, but hardly a minute passes in Another Round (Thomas Vinterberg, 2020) where Mikkelsen does not bring to this mundane man the same alluring, exciting tragedy as in his flashiest roles. With the benefit of a hysterical script and a trusting, hands-off filming style from Vinterberg, Mikkelsen and his co-stars elevate a simple, charming premise into one of the year’s most refined and thoughtful films.
The film is centred around four teachers; Martin (Mikkelsen), Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen), Peter (Lars Ranthe) and Nikolaj (Magnus Milang) who are all in various stages of a midlife crisis, miserable and lacking the enthusiasm needed to reach their struggling students. Martin in particular has fallen into a soul-crushing rut, asking his wife Anika (Maria Bonnevie) in an early scene: “have I become boring?” to which she can only reply “you’re not the same Martin I first met”. Even his job is a humiliation, with his own class turning to their parents to get him sacked before his wallowing can cost them a high grade in pivotal exams.
Everything changes for Martin and his co-workers however, when a birthday celebration for Nikolaj leads the four men down a rabbit hole concerning the studies of physiatrist Finn Skårderud, who believed that men are born with a 0.05% deficit of alcohol in their blood. With the excuse of conducting an experiment to test Skårderud’s theory ‘for science’, the four men decide to consume a consistent amount of alcohol all day, every day, maintaining the exact level needed to loosen up and achieve their best selves.
The results, as you can imagine, are frequently hilarious to behold. Hijinks ranging from Tommy, a P.E. teacher, refusing to share his ‘water’ with a dehydrated student to Martin walking headfirst into the teacher’s lounge door, create and sustain an illusion of light, silly entertainment that wouldn’t be out of place in a Seth Rogen/James Franco production. Consequently, the film’s tension feels all the more palpable as it builds over time with the four men growing in confidence and taking more dangerous risks. Mikkelsen shines here in toeing the line between farce and thriller, turning the actions of a bumbling, drunken man commanding a classroom into a circus act, dipping back and forth between inspiring his students and risking his reputation.
Crucially though, the film never forgets that all of this laughter and covert spectacle is in service of a narrative that is fundamentally quite sad; these men find more happiness in turning themselves into clowns and riding on the thrill of exposure than in the comfort of homes and careers they’ve built for themselves over a lifetime. Vinterberg does his best work in isolating these moments of unremarkable depression amongst the anarchy, often lingering on an actor’s face after a vibrant line reading for just long enough to capture a tremble in their alcohol-induced facade.
Another Round is as entertaining and provocative as the best among Mads Mikkelsen’s filmography, with his signature aloof style meshing beautifully with the precise pathos of Vinterberg’s direction and the reserved performances from the ensemble cast around him. There is something truly entrancing about seeing a simple story told with such assured skill and tonal mastery as this, leaping from comedy to devastation and back again with the elegance of a ballerina, at one point literally when Mikkelsen takes centre stage to flex an array of impressive dance moves he’s been keeping from us all these years. What more could you possibly want from a film?
Photo credit: Henrik Ohsten.
Coming soon to Irish cinemas.
