Fed up with routine work tasks and mundane lives, four high school teachers—Martin, Tommy, Peter and Nikolaj—decide to try out an experiment: to maintain a 0.05% of alcohol content in the blood, which would give them energy. Martin, a history teacher, indeed turns his lecture more unusal and is thus able to engage his otherwise passive students. Music teacher Peter also becomes creative, by darkening the classroom during singing to enhance the audio experience, as do physical education teacher Tommy and philosophy teacher Nikolaj. However, eventually they increase their drinking, so Nikolaj's wife leaves him with their three kids, whereas Martin is shocked when his wife Anika admits she had an affair because she thought he is distant towards her. The three stop drinking, except Tommy who is suspended from school and dies in a boat accident. At his funeral, Martin receives a message from Anika that she is willing to give their relationship another chance.
A dark and tragicomic meditation on the effects of drinking alcohol—but through it also a meditation on trying to find measure and the right balance in life in general—Thomas Vinterberg's "Another Round" is a good film that is overall still a little bit overlong and somewhat under-inspired. The concept of four high school teachers who want to maintain a 0.05% of alcohol content in blood has some really effervescent moments—for instance, in order to make his history class interesting, teacher Martin starts to engage his students: "Josse, there's an election with three candidates, so who do you vote for? Number 1: he is partially paralyzed from polio, has hypertension, he's anemic and suffers from an array of serious illnesses. He lies if it suits his interests and consults astrologists on his politics. Number 2: he's overweight and already lost three elections. He's had depression and two heart attacks. He's impossible to work with and smokes non-stop. He drinks and adds two sleeping pills before dozing off. Number 3: he's a decorated war hero. He treats women with respect. He loves animals, never smokes, and only has a beer on rare occasions." The students in the class all vote for candidate number 3, and then Martin reveals they just discarded Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, and gave their vote to Adolf Hitler. More of these kind of moments would have been welcomed, since the story is a bit overstretched in the second half, and struggles to find new subplots which would justify prolonging this concept, but it has its fair share of ideas: one such is when Nikolaj laments in front of his friends that he has three kids, and that the youngest one pees in his bed, only to make an ironic full circle when the totally drunk Nikolaj wakes up one morning at home and realizes he peed in his own bed, causing an angry rant from his wife. The ending feels somewhat vague, yet the strong actors and competent directing by Vinterberg assure a quality viewing experience.
Grade:++
No comments:
Post a Comment