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Original language title: Druk

Country: denmark

Year: 2020

Running time: 115

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10288566

Chris says: “Pleasantly buzzed while celebrating a birthday at a fancy restaurant, history teacher Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) and his three male colleagues decide to test an obscure theory as to whether one’s life is enhanced if a 0.05% alcohol level is consistently maintained. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’, you may sneer at this point, but though Thomas Vinterberg’s film is a tad lighter than his usual fare, it certainly doesn’t shy away from answering that question and considering the consequences. Not a diatribe or even an anti-alcohol screed, it nimbly shifts between humor, satire and despair—an inventive, funny, sad, engaging and fully dimensional study of male mid-life crises. The men in it may go off the rails, but the film manages to stay mostly on track. 4.5 cats

“TIFF 2020 Reviews”

 

Michael says: “The latest film by Thomas Vinterberg comes highly recommended, but I was still a bit leary of it after reading the synopsis. I know it stars Chlotrudis favorite Mads Mikklesen, and the last film this pair worked on together was THE HUNT, also a big hit with the Society. Sadly, ANOTHER ROUND just didn’t resonate with me, and frankly, rather annoyed me. Four men in Denmark, friends in middle-age, gather together to celebrate one of their fiftieth birthdays. During the course of conversation, the friends discuss Martin’s (Mikklesen’s) situation. He’s a high school professor, married with kids, who has just lost that spark in life. As a result, his marriage, and his job are suffering as he zombies through the motions, numb to the world. Birthday boy, Nikolaj, tells his friend about nan article he read recently, about research being conducted about alcohol consumption in the Danish male. Apparently men are born with a blood alcohol level that is below normal, so he should always be drinking at a moderate rate to elevate his level to slightly above normal. This will, apparently, rejuvenate Martin and bring him back his verve for life. The four decide to try the experiment on themselves to see if it works for them.

“As you might imaging, things don’t go quite the way they plan. While things seem to be working at first, with Martin suddenly becoming a compelling and well-loved teacher, as well as rekindling the relationship with his wife, and the others all seeing a bit of bump in their careers/lives, the resulting desire to keep it going, in fact, to escalate things, eventually lead to… well, a bunch of drunk guys behaving badly and dangerously. I guess that’s supposed to be funny? Sadly, for me, there are two things that tend to turn me off: grown men behaving like kids, and being sober while watching drunk people act like idiots. With both of those things happening in spades, I can’t say I had a pleasant viewing experience.
“There’s some commentary in here — it’s clear from the film, that alcohol consumption that leads to rowdy behavior is a bit of an issue in Denmark, but it’s difficult to figure out quite what Vinterberg, who also co-wrote the film, is trying to say. After the nothing-short-of eye-rolling improvement of these guys’ lives from drinking, when things take a pretty dark turn, the viewer starts to think that maybe that was the point of the film. Alcohol isn’t what you need to embrace life and live it to its fullest… but then things take a sudden turn again, and the message gets a bit blurry. Still the climax of the film, while ostensibly joyous, has a dark undercurrent running through it, lending a possibly harsh statement. Getting there just wasn’t entertaining for me.
“I do think Mikkelsen is a fine actor, and his work with Martin shows that. His character is certainly the most layered of the four. His wife, played by Maria Bonnevie (RECONSTRUCTION) does a nice job with a pretty thankless role, but the other three leads just didn’t really bring it. Vinterberg (THE HUNT, THE CELEBRATION) is good filmmaker — I quite enjoyed CELEBRATION, and I liked THE HUNT (although not as much as my fellow Chlotrudians), but ANOTHER ROUND is a big miss for me. But don’t take my word for it… Chris, and lots of smart critics liked it quite a bit. 2 1/2 cats“

Bob says: “Four middle-aged Danish men, all of them school teachers, sensing that the thrill is gone from pretty much everything, try an experiment: what’s the perfect blood alcohol level to perform better in all aspects of life? Naturally, I had to experiment with finding the optimal level of drunkenness to watch the film. I found it… blurry.

“No, there’s really much of value here, although once we’re past the empty, we get nothing but the fantastic and the horrible. But the 400 BLOWS-ish finish leaves you wondering where we might go from here.”

Beth C. says: “Thomas Vinterberg is an interesting idea, but was not executed well. By many standards, of course it’s a fine movie. But, I am a long-standing Vinterberg fanatic, and I know he can do better. I expect much more from this director. The areas in which the film failed are depth of character development and in the core direction. There were directorial choices that detracted from the film’s artistic quality. One of the worst problems is the predictability. Some really good elements are there. All the actors are talented and deliver, and there are excellent elements to the story. Still, I must be tough on this film because I know what Vinterberg can accomplish, artistically. It looks as if this director has begun to take shortcuts and opt for crowd-pleasing or formulaic plot sequences. It’s as though ever since he chose to direct FAR FROM THE MADDENING CROWD, Vinterberg’s filmmaking has been slipping. 2.5 Cats”

 

 

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