Posted by Middle-aged teachers get hammered in what I can assume is a celebration of life… and alcohol.
Being a Cineworld Unlimited member gives me a certain luxury against your regular cinema goer – I mean, I get 10% off popcorn! If that isn’t the staple of cinema royalty then I don’t know what is. This time though, I was given the chance to attend an advance screening of Another Round THREE WHOLE DAYS before the UK release date. This wasn’t something I planned on giving up, even if the showing came straight after an England Euros win against Germany, by which point I myself had already consumed enough alcohol to make up for the apparent deficiency of blood alcohol content.
To be honest, the thought of watching a Danish movie with subtitles didn’t especially appeal to me after the football, but thankfully I stuck with it nonetheless. Even then, the guy sitting behind me almost made the experience worse with his heavy breathing. He either fell asleep during the trailers, or he was Darth Vader in disguise.
The movie consists of 4 high school teachers; Martin, Tommy, Peter and Nikolaj, who deal with various issues in their lives by taking up an experiment to see if maintaining a blood alcohol content of 0.05 makes you more creative and relaxed. Now that’s something I’m willing to take up! The plot largely centres around Martin, played superbly by Mads Mikkelsen, a family man struggling with depression, lacking emotion in his relationship with his wife and unable to connect with his students in the classroom. The experiment immediately shows positive results in all characters’ lives, leading to furthering the experiment with an increase in alcohol level. As expected, this goes too far, increasing the drama with consequences in each of their lives.
The days leading up to this movie, I’d been binge watching several Fast and Furious movies to catch up ready to watch F9, so this was certainly a nice change of pace to say the least! No brainless action here, instead, a thought-provoking movie making me question how such an experiment may affect my own life. After a depressing look at the state of play of Martin’s life, the movie ventures into comedy showing the initial outcomes at the beginning of the experiment. It all seems joyful, and you almost feel part of the group, getting merry along with them – though this may have been due to feeling a tad drunk myself. There were genuine moments I laughed out loud, watching some of the silly antics as if I was getting involved too. However, with the experiment taking a turn for the worst, the feeling of being involved continues, and just like in real life, you’re hit by a moment and realise that you and your friends probably should have stopped a few drinks ago.
Coming from a family with its fair share of problems with alcohol, it made for difficult viewing seeing the characters’ descent into alcoholism – making it all so real in my eyes. This was expertly done, particularly in the second half of the movie where the realisation of what’s happening around them really hits the group. I’m not one to cry (apart from when my daughter sticks her fangs into my shoulder), but the fate of one member of the group certainly tested my resolve.
Watching the movie through subtitles didn’t turn out so much of an issue for me, I tend to stick subtitles on everything I watch anyway, and therefore I was able to keep up with what was happening easily. In fact, I realised just how similar Danish is to English. Like “Okay” means “Okay”. That’s another language under my belt.
Despite capturing the descent into alcoholism brilliantly, I did wonder what the overall message was of this movie. After the tragic events that take place as a result of the experiment, there’s a scene showing one of the teachers advising their student to drink quite a bit to calm their nerves for an exam – something that works out perfectly well and helps the student pass. Also, the movie finishes with scenes depicting unease in the group having another drink over dinner, understandably, but then moments later they’re drinking, dancing and celebrating. It doesn’t really take away from the movie, just makes me wonder whether I should have another drink or not? Ah screw it, make mine a double scotch on the rocks!
Verdict
A tragic movie with its fair share of laughs, Another Round captures the grim reality of what alcohol can do to the best of us, let alone the worst! Acted very well by the leading actors, making you feel like you’re going on this journey alongside them.