When the aqua vitae kicks in, it's the psychology that is digested, intoxication either illumes or darkens the 180-degree panel in Thomas Vinterburg's "Another Round" ("Druk" in Denmark). In the drunk stupor phase, Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) notably in anguish with the stinging whirlwind of alcoholic concoctions he consumed. The picture is zoomed so proximate to his face, pleated in inebriation, as the vignette is blackened on the outer rim and blurred around the clarity of a looped Thomas; foreshadowing his intake will be the story's outtake. Danish director Vinterburg glints the dark attribute of alcoholism, controlling the compacted portrait of uncontrollable drinking. He has but himself and his pet dog Laban to be thoughtful about, else, Thomas is merely cocktail dallying until downed. Vinterburg has co-written a fluctuatingly uplifted character study and that character is — spoons tinkling on wine glasses — liquor.
"Another Round" pours the story of a clique of four buddies: Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), Peter (Lars Ranthe), Nikolaj (Markus Millang), and Thomas who are all enduring mid-life crises, being unmotivated at work and at home. Incidentally, they are teachers and colleagues at the local high school in Copenhagen. At Nikolaj's fortieth birthday dinner, the gang discusses a scientific theory by famed psychiatrist Finn Skårderud: a person with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.5 is calmer and more intellectually agile. They stir a plan to retain an 0.5 BAC, swilling experiential hooch every day until 8PM and not after.
Expectedly, "Another Round" topples spiritualism to the domain of alcoholism as the friends systematically incur booze over the limit they set, the intemperance clearing the numb in their ageing presentiments. The film swigs the drunk stages from euphoria - the teachers become more confident and creative in class, immersing their students with wittier curriculum, and manage their respective families better; excitement - they decide to increase their consumption with an upgraded BAC ceiling of 0.10 because they are awed at their heightened productivity and capacities for a happier livability; confusion - binge drinking experimental spirits, the friends are worried over by their loved ones as they sway on the borderline of alcoholism; stupor - Tommy gulping on whilst his buddies have wavered their research, halting the beverage consumption; coma - veering from their realities, having hardships in instructing students without a swill; and then death which may be the ceasing of the coursing of booze itself.
Spiritualism: psychology as if pitted at the glassware base, is the stimulant in "Another Round." Having to overcome identity crises, the brain-waves brew interior questions that thirst for answers from the person's outerior. Consumption is refuge but dependability on the concoctions is the mindful maneuver to cope with the straining sobriety of the daily. The overcrowded shots of lone alcoholism are psychical captures of its winding sensations with none to fall over but the self. The script, co-made with Tobias Lindholm, is a sober liquidation of habit and stimulating adrenaline of dispersing like liquor in the veins. In Martin's household, the tensions burgeon as his wife Anika (Maria Bonnevie) confesses her infidelity while he recharges from his worst hangover yet. Martin's wrath is contained in a champagne bottle, but Mikkelsen is bubbling over, his rampage un-distilled and spilling on the supper table with the plates wiped from his blinded swipe. He is maddened and abstinent, Mikkelsen being a temptation of himself, resisted and surrendered into through his internal commotion. As Martin exits the house, he is griping, "Nobody has to wait for me," his children and wife stupefied, craning about him whilst slamming the front door.
Painful, empathic, and empathetic that twinkling is, the script of "Another Round" and Mikkelsen mixing into an alcoholic mania that drips lonesomeness on street that cannot be found, by dawning or nightfall when the darkly frame of the buddies teetering on pavement, streetlit, they lined a-scatter, poured in with gambol. Those are the horsemen of alcoholism, faultless by a fault in their mid-life: the lack of joyous mirth, as empty as a transparent highball, devoid of spirituality which are being chilled in the freezing human vessel.
Whether 0.5, 0.10, and so on, "Another Round" is the empirical awakening of the snoozing being. The wakefulness, though, only retains in dreamland. So in their alcohol study, Martin, Thomas, Peter, and Nikolaj will be infinitely sleepy; their spiritualism is roused as the bubbles levitate to foam. Capping off the wondrously esoteric roundtable of a movie, "Another Round" toasts to the graduates of high school and high spirits, the demons slurped to their smallest ounce, with Martin at last uncorking his fabled jazz ballet by the pier amongst the celebrating students. Galvanic as it ought to be, Mikkelsen is only breakdancing to Scarlet Pleasure's kicky "What a Life," with intermissions of a sip in his beer can, and it is glorious — as if fixating on the sub-zero fog dancing along the edges of an iced coupe. The steps are not, for Martin has let loose his spirituality. His intake of the euphoric situation is superbness, suspended on a bottomless freefall to jazzing on, unstirred.
Director: Thomas Vinterburg
Images and trailer ©️ Nordis Film, Zentropa, et al.; TIFF Trailers, YouTube.com
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