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Another Round Movie Review

Another Round is a 2020 Danish dramedy film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelsen. It’s a tonally inconsistent, but mostly strong movie.

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“No, I’m not indifferent.

It’s not easy to learn when you’ve got

your head stuck in your phone“

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Four high school teachers consume alcohol on a daily basis to see how it affects their social and professional lives. This is a weird movie that mostly works despite its tendencies to be indecisive in tone. I am of course talking about its treatment of alcoholism. The first half made light out of it through many silly, fun scenes, but the second half turned everything around and turned quite dark.

I personally preferred the more dramatic side of this movie as the comedic one had an unfortunate tendency to somewhat encourage drinking, which I am personally very much against. I did like the scenes with the four men and they were entertaining, but they were a bit too silly for their own sake.

The best part of the movie is the resulting problems from the protagonist’s alcoholism, especially his relationship with his wife. Yes, the women here are pushed aside narratively speaking, but still the scenes between the two all worked as they were quite emotional. The movie also depicted the midlife crisis in such a realistic, very moving manner.

Another Round is very well acted across the board and also solidly developed in its characters. The dynamic between the men was infectiously fun and they were great as a group. The highlight is of course Mads Mikkelsen. He gave here one of the best performances of 2020 and one of his personal best so far. He played the central character with such force and nuance.

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The movie also worked in its early classroom scenes. That speech about world leaders and their personal lives paradoxically being different from their leadership was fascinating and thought-provoking. I did not care for the somewhat episodic structure of the movie, but those title screens did make the proceedings light and energetic. The direction from Vinterberg is reliably strong, but the ending left a lot to be desired for me.

Another Round is tonally inconsistent with the comedic elements being silly and quite problematic in intentions, but the dramatic elements undoubtedly worked, especially the movie’s depiction of the male midlife crisis. The direction from Vinterberg is strong and some scenes here are quite impactful. The highlight of the film is definitely Mads Mikkelsen whose performance here is one of the best of the year.

My Rating – 4