Another Round

Director: Thomas Vinterberg
Year Released: 2020
Rating: 1.5

A group of high school teachers - including Mads Mikkelsen - who are a little unhappy with their lack of enthusiasm as educators decide over dinner to do an experiment based on the Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud's theory that humans lack alcohol in their blood (.05 too low to be precise) and binge drink during the weekdays to see how it affects their work.  It starts with an intriguing premise - aren't we all two drinks behind? - that the gentlemen try to take seriously, but the movie goes to (unfortunately) predictable places: they take their project too far and get too wasted, wake up in the street, their wives leave and one of them dies.  It doesn't take a two hour film to make the argument that if one is to drink, to do it in moderation and that a few sips of a spirit of your choosing can relieve anxiety before a big exam (not guzzling like amateurs on New Year's Eve).  Also: points have been deducted for not mentioning Kingsley Amis' very essential Everyday Drinking.