Another Round, the latest outing by prolific director Thomas Vinterberg, is titled Druk in its native Danish. “Druk” means bender, which is a far more sensical title than the sanitized American version. The film begins with something called the lake run which is apparently a yearly tradition in Denmark and therefore completely normal over there. The lake run consists of teams of high school students running around the length of a lake while consuming an entire crate of beers. If you vomit as a team you get two minutes deducted off of your time.
In Denmark, everyone drinks like a crazy person. However, I would argue that everyone drinks like a crazy person here in America, too. The difference is that in America we’re all ashamed of it. Maybe that’s why so many American writers seem to fundamentally misunderstand the point of this film. Every review I read seems to think that the movie is a cautionary tale, another puritanical commentary on the dangers of alcoholism. The truth is actually the complete opposite. While Another Round does touch on some of the things that can go wrong with excessive drinking, the film actually isn’t really about drinking at all. It’s about aging, youthful passion, and the importance of living life to its fullest. Drinking is just the set dressing for a larger and more complex tale.
The film follows a group of four middle aged high school teachers who at some point within their lives have lost something vital. This is particularly apparent in the main character Martin who sleepwalks through every aspect of his life. He rambles through his lectures in history class, reciting nonsense that seems pulled from a Wikipedia page. He doesn’t care about the lesson plan and his students care even less. He looks like he wouldn’t mind so much if he died in the middle of class. He probably hopes for it. He is disconnected from his kids. At one point he asks his wife if he’s boring. She says that he’s not the same man she married. “Ok,” he says. They both know it’s true.
At his friend’s fortieth birthday party he grows misty eyed after downing a shot of vodka and two glasses of wine,”I don’t know how I ended up like this.” His friend Nikolaj, a psychology teacher at the school brings up a study by Norwegian psychologist Finn Skårderund, who wrote that all humans have deficient blood alcohol content, and should try to maintain a level of 0.5%. The four of them decide to test this theory, typing out notes on their experiment and vowing to stick to the study using a specific set of parameters. No drinking after 8 PM, and only on weekdays. If you think that four middle aged high school teachers drinking at work sounds like a recipe for disaster, well you’re in the wrong movie my friend, because the experiment, at least at first, is a success. Music teacher Peter transforms his lackadaisical chorus class into a group of singing angels, soccer coach Tommy becomes so engaged with his team that he helps previously shy player Specks score a goal.
The biggest transformation occurs in Martin who goes from meandering and dull to excited, energized and alert. “What do all of you have in common with Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Ernest Hemingway? Yes even the girls. You all drink like maniacs!”. The entire class seems to come alive as he coaxes students up to the blackboard to write notes on these famous figures, sliding into their empty desks. He whips off his glasses and transforms into the kind of teacher you dream of having when you are in high school.
One day he walks into the school with a blood alcohol content of .1%. The character Martin has something in common with the actor who plays him. Martin is a former jazz ballet student, and Mads Mikkelsen is a former professional dancer. As he sways and dances through the halls you can see that inherent grace and whimsy in the man’s movement. He sidesteps fellow teachers and students before finally walking straight into a wall.
About three quarters of the way through the movie things do start to go downhill. Even though Martin has begun to make more of an effort to connect with his wife and kids, his wife tearfully tells him that it might be too late. He should have started putting in effort years ago. The men decide to push the boundaries of their experiment, going on an afternoon bender that leads them to dance on the tables of a local bar (fun) and attempt a badly planned grocery trip (relatable). Martin wakes up the next day on the lawn of a next door neighbor to his son shaking him awake with a look of resigned acceptance on his face. “I got a little drunk yesterday,” he explains. “But dad, you’ve been drunk for a while now haven’t you?”. The drinking isn’t exactly the problem. The problem is much larger and more difficult. This is a man who has been disconnected from everything for so long that a few family camping trips and some (very) good sex with his wife really might not be enough to undo the damage.
It’s Tommy whose life ends up permanently destroyed by the experiment. At the end of the film, the remaining three share a bottle of wine to toast to their late friend and end up running into a group of graduates from their high school out celebrating by the water. The excited, and yes drunk, teenagers toast the three teachers, inviting them into the celebration. Martin’s friends coax him into showing them “some of his old moves”. And this is where the film really comes alive.
That hidden grace that we have seen in Martin throughout the film is on full display here. Mads Mikkelsen says that until that scene he hadn’t danced in thirty years, but I never would have guessed that. We see Martin stumble a little bit at the beginning. A little awkward, a little embarrassed but as he continues he comes fully alive. He bounds off of chairs, parkouring around bleachers and even dipping into a spontaneous cartwheel. At fifty years old, Mads Mikkelsen is still one of the most handsome men out there, with the kind of face that can reflect anger, despair, and joy in ways that are so affecting that it’s hard to keep yourself from feeling whatever it is he is expressing. The film ends with an image of Martin leaping into the water. And here is where the reviewers get pretty divisive. I read a review that said that Martin was falling over the edge, drowning in his mistakes, “off the deep end” if you will. I could not agree less.
Imagine you are at a party, it’s summer and you are drunk and dancing with your friends. You jump into the pool. What is the feeling that you have when you do this? As someone who has done just that at a party I can tell you that it does not feel like drowning. It is freedom, it is whimsy and the magic of being in nothing but that moment right there. There is something to be said for drinking. It really can make you feel like there are no barriers between you and the world. You can be yourself without fear of not being accepted. You can feel each emotion fully without shame. You can dance like no one is watching. As you grow older, you are expected to just accept that it is time to sit down, be responsible, be an adult, act your age. Stop being a child, what you’re still out getting drunk and partying with your friends? Pathetic.
Fuck that. Just because you are out of your twenties doesn’t mean that the fun has to stop. I think people do lose something when they get older. And a lot of that is become of the expectation of who you are supposed to be when you become an adult, as if you’re just supposed to shed your skin and become a whole other person.
This movie is about the universality of youth. About the magic of a spirit that does not need to be thrown out when you get older. It means that just because you feel you have lost something along the way, doesn’t mean you can’t get it back. And just because you don’t remember all the old moves, doesn’t mean that you can’t still dance.
