Thomas Vinterberg's Academy Award-nominated "Druk" ("Another Round" in English) looks at the role of alcoholic beverages in our lives, with a group of friends trying to maintain a constant blood-alcohol level. It's not a pro- or anti-alcohol movie; it simply shows the role that alcohol plays; the naturalistic cinematography adds to the tipsy feeling. Managing to cleverly fluctuate between funny and serious, the movie hits all the right notes while never turning mean. I'll be eager to see Vinterberg's next effort.

A real credit to Danish cinema.

"Druk" or "Another Round" is a Danish movie that premiered back in 2020 and now finally reached theaters here as well. And overall it was worth the wait I'd say. But first things first. The film is pretty much entirely in the Danish language and runs for slightly under two hours in the version I saw. The writer and director is Thomas Vinterberg and he made this film around the age of 50 and the man has been among Denmark's best filmmaker for quite some time now and this one here could very well propel him into the top spot. There has been a lot of quality from this little North European country in terms of movies lately, more than my country Germany can only dream of. This was one of the most lauded films this awards season. The movies was intended to be shown at Cannes first, but the pandemic got in the way. Otherwise, it would have been a huge contender there too. In any case, the film continues with its success greatly with all kinds of awards bodies, for example with a pretty much clean sweep at the European Film Awards and after Minari was not considered eligible for the foreign language category at the Oscars, there was pretty much zero doubt that something other than this one could win. Otherwise it might have been a closer contest. Speaking of the Oscars, director Vinterberg himself was nominated here for his work behind the camera and that came as a bit of a surprise for sure. I would not call him undeserving, but I am also not sure if I think he was really deserving of that honor. Anyway, with Vinterberg there was a special story this awards season that is linked to death as well, namely when he lost one of his children under tragic circumstances. Not something that inspired this film though if I remember correctly. But still my sympathies to him.

As for the cast, Danish movie fans will certainly know more cast members here than the average movie-goer, but that is perfectly fine. Everybody will of course recognize Mads Mikkelsen. He is the man you see on the poster with the bottle in his hand and he is also a star internationally, no matter if we are looking at Casino Royale, Hannibal or (soon) Fantastic Beasts. I like him quite a lot, so happy about his successes with this film here. He carried the movie nicely from beginning to end, is in most scenes and elevates an already pretty good screenplay. He does so much, even if he has little to work with. The best example for me was the scene in which he finds out about the idea of maintining a certain blood alcohol level in order to feel better. The subtle moments there with him at the table were as good as the more obvious moments when he is the one to talk about everything that goes wrong in his life. Even his friends apparently do not take him seriously anymore, see him as some kind of victim as one of them talked to the others about something linked to his class and how the students were unhappy with his teaching and Mikkelsen's character apparently told him not to. Told him to keep it as a secret. Yet, as he finds out, he also does not act outraged. He just lets it all happen, does not stand up for himself. Another example would be the scene with all the students and parents present in which he also does not really defend himself. I mean one of the students left class while he was teaching because he was "not up for it anymore" or something. You see who's to blame here. Anyway, I did not want to jump this deep into the story yet, but let me also mention Thomas Bo Larsen, an actor that Vinterberg has worked with for decades now. Saw the film Festen a while ago and the two collaborated there as well. TBL's character and performance were also among the more notable aspects from this film for me and actually long before his character gained tragic relevance. He just like the actors playing the other two friends from the quartet were nominated for a Danish Film Award (Bodil),but managed to come short on the win in a Godfather scenario (vs. Joel Grey). Oh yeah, and for equality reasons, the actress playing the protagonist's wife was also nominated.

This is a film that is really bittersweet at times. You may feel uncomfortable watching at times and feel a bit caught when you have scenes that seem initially kinda funny like how the men hide their alcohol, but in retrospective, if you know what happens later on and watch the film again, then you will perhaps not laugh anymore. Take Thomas Bo Larsen's character (the man reminds me a bit of Mickey Rourke somehow) and how he hides his alcohol in a water bittle while teaching physical education. This was also a good example already for how he was forced to lie when a boy wanted to drink something from his bottle. Or when the headmaster or who she is suspects the children of being responsible for the alcohol abuse and we know it's these four fully-grown men in fact. That was also kinda funny. Or when Mikkelsen's character runs against the wall because he had twice the intended amount of alcohol in his blood. What was definitely not funny anymore was Thomas Bo Larsen's character entering the room heavily drunk and visible for everybody. That reminded me of a statement from earlier from one of the protagonist's kids it was I think that sounded like something like how everybody knows that he is drinking. I kept wondering about that too. Could they hide it this well? Did really nobody say something or just did not want to say something. I mean people must have smelled it. And it is also debatable how the idea of giving a student alcohol before he takes an important oral exam is justifiable, even if it helped him pass. Which he would not have otherwise. Or at least not with the desired grade. Admittedly that scene felt a bit easy, like the question was really not so difficult that he could not have answered it correctly when sober.

Other than such a scene here and there, this film had nice attention to detail. I think Vinterberg did especially well with parallels and how they were actually very tragic. Take the moment when we find out about one very young character peeing himself in bed and later on we have his father do the exact same thing because he was drunk. All self-control was gone. A second exemple I remember is the little boy I mentioned earlier with the water bottle and how he holds Thomas Bo Larsen's character's hand on one occasion. Later on, he is one of those holding the coffin that contains the corpse of his former football teacher. Really a tragic turn of events. The parallel I mentioned first also resulted in the man's wife/partner leaving him because she could not take it any longer. So romance relationships also play a major issue here. This also applies to Mikkelsen's character. His wife also leaves him. Maybe only temporary as we find out with these short messages towards the end, but still. We also see how he gets violent on one occasion. This is also not a matter of keeping it all secret, even if the men do, but we find out on several occasions that they are not really successful. One female character asks on one occasion in a mildly funny tone something like if they are drinking again. That felt pretty fitting. It's an inconvenient subject. On the one hand a basis for fun and feeling better, maybe even feeling something again at all as we see when he deals with his class with the alcohol in his blood for the first time there, on the other hand, something that can literally destroy everything. But nonetheless we also find out about the positive sides. The protagonist's wife also appreciates her man for the first time in years. They have great sex even. I still struggled with the way they presented her unfaithfulness here as if it is something that was justified in anyway. Maybe I am not up-to-date anymore, but I think that you should always leave your partner before cheating on him.

That is pretty much it. There are a handful of moments, especially in the first half where the film almost feels fully as a comedy, but in retrospective it is not, even if it says so here on imdb. I mean it's still kinda funny how they do not get the fresh fish at the supermarket and, fully drunk then, joke about catching it from the water, even try to do so. Catch a crab and want to use it as bait for the fish afterwards. In any case, this is a film that will probably only really make you laugh on first watch. It gets a lot darker quickly. The shot you see on the poster is from the very end. It looks like fun. He is partying together with his student who now adore him (especially after the interesting "who would you elect" discussion),but the truth is that this ending could not be any more depressing. He fully gave in to his alcoholism now, could have lost his only shot at getting back together with his partner and when he jumps into the water, the water that should haunt him, fill him with grief because of what it did to his friend, he forgot about all of it in his drug-induced ecstasy. A shot that will stay in your mind for sure. This is when the closing credits roll in. The song ("What a Life" by Scarlet Pleasure) played during this scene I really liked a lot. Fit the moment nicely as well. You can also hear it at the start with the youth partying again to an extent that has you wonder if it still feels right, especially the synchronous vomiting. Another pretty memorable parallel. I think this is one of the defining films on alcohol(ism) in the 21st century by now, even if I must say the gigantic awards attention feels a bit exaggerated. This review is by the way coming from somebody who experienced severe abuse of alcohol in his closest family too, even if it happened decades ago. I give it a thumbs-up and there was never any doubt for me if I could. A good film overall with great moments here and there. Just no excellence. Go check it out.

Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) pines for his fun-loving hard-drinking youth. As an older man, he's a boring high school history teacher. His life has gone stale and his students hate him. After a night of heavy drinking, he and three other teachers decide to do rigorous drinking as an 'experiment'.

Let me do the ending first. It's the big scene of the movie. I get the exuberance but I don't like the acrobatics. He's drunk, right? He can't be doing a dance number. At the same time, I get doing a dance to end the movie. Like the rest, I like the idea of it a little more than the actual thing. I like the concept of the experiment but if that's the case, they should exaggerate it by doing it scientifically. They would make up rules and keep careful logs. This is an interesting idea and it has the great Mads doing drunk acting. It's certainly an intriguing film.