Another Round (2020)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Another Round (2020) – T. Vinterberg

Thoroughly enthralling and ultimately uplifting tale of midlife burnout and how to rejuvenate it.  I don’t think the answer is really alcohol – although that is a hypothesis that the film investigates and (mostly) rejects. Mads Mikkelsen plays Martin, a high school history teacher, who has lost his mojo – so much so that the kids in his class stage an intervention (with their parents) demanding some improvements. This comes up as a topic for discussion at a 40^th birthday night out with a few of his mates (other teachers at the school) and one proposes that Martin needs to loosen up.  He quotes a philosopher who apparently argued that humans would be happier and more successful if they kept their blood-alcohol content at .05%.  The teachers decide to try this out and begin swigging spirits before class in the morning and throughout the day.  The classes do seem to get better, looser, more fun.  The teachers progress to different variations of the experiment with often funny results.  The film itself feels intoxicated!  But, of course, given the nature of this particular substance, all the fun cannot last. And if this is a Dogme 95 film (which it may not be), from Thomas Vinterberg, an original member of that group, some degree of realism may have been required.  And yet, the ridiculous experiment turns out to be the way the guy got his life back – but probably not recommended for everyone.  Winner of the Best Foreign/International Film Oscar.