Keswick Film Club - Reviews - Another Round

Is there anything funnier than watching someone who is drunk when you are stone cold sober? How about when you are just a tiny bit drunk yourself?

The loosening of inhibitions is the central premise of Another Round, directed by the legendary film-maker Thomas Vinterberg.

Four, forty-something teachers have drifted into stale routines, dull at home and uninspiring in the classroom. At an elaborate birthday dinner, one of the four recalls a theory from a Danish psychiatrist that the blood alcohol count we are born with is too low and that we should drink to maintain 0.05 per cent to bring out the best in ourselves.

As the courses arrive, each accompanied by a different tipple, the theory become more and more attractive and the four decide to put it in to practice – for a purely scientific purposes you understand. They will maintain their blood alcohol levels during the working day but would not drink after 8.00pm.

Martin's (played by the peerless Mads Mikkelsen) history lessons suddenly become lively and challenging. He is as engaged with the students as they now are with him. Music lessons result in glorious harmonies.

If they can do that at 0.05 per cent, how much better can they get? Its time for another round.

As the scientific experiment progresses, we watch relationships fall apart and reform as the effects of alcohol take hold, affecting the different characters in different ways.

Vinterberg displays a deft touch as he combines laugh-out-loud humour with the disintegration of lives – at times it is like watching a car crash in slow motion. He cleverly uses graphics to show the ever-rising readings from the blood alcohol monitors and the increasingly incoherent entries into the scientific report. Ultimately the men realise that they are slipping into alcoholism and the experiment stops. Just in time for some of them, at least.

Vinterberg describes the film as "a love letter to Denmark" He says it feeds off a unique Danish duality: "We are caught between being crazy Vikings, drinking in the street, being very liberal and yet we are still very modest and provincial and at times mediocre."

Neither Vinterberg nor Mikkelsen could ever be described as mediocre. Another Round is a joy.